I loved and still love watching words flower into sentences and sentences blossom into stories.

That's what writing is. It's moving past your fear.

No matter how big you get, it's still okay to cry because everybody's got a right to their own tears.

I think it's important to remember that writing is a gift and our stories are gifts to ourselves and to the world and sometimes giving isn't always the easiest thing to do but it comes back.

People are going to judge you all the time no matter what you do...Don't worry about other people. Worry about you.

Mainly, I try not to think about my readers as I write - I just think of my characters and myself - If they're interesting to me, my hope is that they'll be interesting to others as well.

Where I grew up, it was all people who were black and Latino, people who look like me. Now I live in a neighborhood where very, very few people look like me.