When you think of how a child experiences a series of events, it feels, for so long, like she's looking at everything from behind this glass and it's obscured.

There is something so deeply visceral about libraries for me-rooms and rooms full of people dreaming and remembering.

Seems like every time life starts straightening itself out, something's gotta go and happen.

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.

There's me in every character I put on the pages.

Fifteen. Sixteen was probably something, but fifteen - fifteen was a place between here and nowhere.

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.