Kids are really tougher than adults, but we tend to forget this in an affluent society that lets kids indulge themselves.

I didnt write anything at all except book reports until I was in seventh grade, and then I wrote mostly poetry for myself.

I love teaching; I love little kids.

Hiding under the bed doesn't make the worry stop.

She looked at her hand: Just some hand, holding a cheap pen. Some girls’ hand. She had nothing to do with that hand. Let that hand do whatever it wanted to.

By the time I started high school, I knew I wanted to be a writer. After graduating from Smith College in Massachusetts, I moved to New York City and worked for the advertising agency J. Walter Thompson.

All I wanted to do was read, to be told stories. Stories were full of excitement and emotions and characters that entertained and often inspired.