When I'm writing flawed characters, I just think about my own flaws.

A lot of times, when people send me books to read - new writers mostly - I find that the book is still in a draft stage and that before it can leave the writer's hands and head to a publisher, it needs about five more revisions. Some people don't want to do that.

Maybe this was our last summer as best friends. I feel like something's going to change now and I'm not going to be able to change it back. —Margaret

Time comes to us softly, slowly. It sits beside us for a while. Then, long before we are ready, it moves on.

Racism doesn't know color, death doesn't know age, and pain doesn't know might.

Keep on doing what you're doing.

I feel like so much of what I'm doing is making a road where there is no road and inviting people on that road with me. It's scary. It's scary, but I can't listen to the voices that are saying form is the only way, or that there is only this kind of form or that kind of form.