I get some of my ideas from watching my three daughters, but most of them come from my own memories of growing up. I can remember how romantic I was, not just about love, but romance in the classic sense - the romantic ideals: of honor and truth, of loyalty, sacrifice and fairness. Those were the elements that made a story satisfying to me.

If you want to mess with me, you'd rather be ready for the consequences.

Since I was a small child, I was always writing either poems or plays... plays in which I had the starring part.

Life's one great lesson was: Do not care. Not caring was a person's real protection.

I love 'Sweet Valley,' but I love it from a different angle. There are people for whom it is their adolescence. They own it, in a way that even I don't. I've come to respect the project more because of the response than I've had. It's more important than I realized it was. I didn't understand the breadth and depth of it. now I'm beginning to more.

The same way that some people can play the piano, I can do plots! They just come!

Nature compensates for its mistakes.