It's so trendy, almost bleeding to death. All the cool girls are doing it.

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

I know you think that when you're 35, 45, 55, you'll be different. But I'm going to let you in on a bit of a secret. You're going to look different, and your life is going to be different, but in your head you'll always be that 16-year-old girl.

I don't do rewrites. I put all the pages in a pile next to the typewriter.

Ella's supersonic voice followed her all the way to Bleecker Street and then dissolved amid the noisy profusion of shops, cafes, and restaurants and the crush of people that made the West Village of Manhattan unique in the world. In a single block you could buy fertility statues from Tanzania, rare Amazonian orchids, a pawned brass tuba, Krispy Kreme doughnuts, or the best, most expensive cup of coffee you ever tasted. It was the doughnuts, incidentally, that attracted Gaia.

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.

You see, Suzanne, history lectures bore me, art films bore me, your friends bore me, and, if you want to know the truth, I guess you bore me too.