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

If I'm writing by intuition, generally that calculation works itself out. But if I'm writing a mystery, and somebody has to have a reason for doing what he's doing, and it's not anything I can imagine myself wanting to do, things get a little more difficult to write, and careless mistakes are made.

Rebellion is necessary for development of character.

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.

I love teaching; I love little kids.

You must not let yourself become too respectable. Keep yourself a little wild. What is life for, if not for the living of it?

You could say that all of life is a series of last chances.