When I was a kid, I got in trouble for lying a lot, and I had a teacher say, instead of lying, write it down, because if you write it down, it's not a lie anymore; it's fiction.

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

I do believe that books can change lives and give people this kind of language they wouldn't have had otherwise.

We live inside our parents' backstory.

When I was a kid, I got in trouble for lying a lot, and I had a teacher say, instead of lying, write it down, because if you write it down, it's not a lie anymore; it's fiction.

Everything I write, I read out loud. It has to sound a certain way. It has to look a certain way on the page.

Because I write realistic fiction, I generally don't think about fixing anyone - I just think about how I want to feel at the end of the book - And I try to write toward that feeling.