People are always coming up to me with my books and saying, 'You write these things I think but I could never say,'

I'm so glad that social media gives me a chance to do that, to celebrate books I love and help proselytize for books I love.

...thinking that the world was like an orange, that I could split it open with my thumbnail and find a whole different world, the grown-up world, the secrets beneath the skin.

I get really starstruck and tongue tied when I'm around other writers and the conversation tends not to go well.

Tell the story that's been growing in your heart, the characters you can't keep out of your head, the tale story that speaks to you, that pops into your head during your daily commute, that wakes you up in the morning.

I don't trust happiness. I turn it over as if it were a glass at a flea market or a rug at a souk, looking for chipped rims or loose threads.

The truth is, what I learned this year is that life is hard...Good people die for no reason. Little kids get sick. The people that are supposed to love you end up leaving.