The best place to cry is on a mother's arms.

There are certain things that I'll hear about and that I think will make a great book and I put it in a file. Sometimes it's a situation that interests me, and I don't even realize what I'm trying to say about it until I get closer to it. Sometimes the book after that I've written 125 pages of, and I can tell you what the book is after that. I just sort of have a linear progression, but more than anything, the topics land in your lap. I don't feel that I go out searching for them.

I’m gonna miss you,” Brianna says. “I’m gonna miss you too, baby,” Angelo murmurs. For Pete’s sake. It’s not like she’s leaving on a trip around the world. She’s only headed to homeroom.

Everyone has a story; everyone hides his past as a means of self-preservation. Some just do it better, and more thoroughly, than others.

Love was that way. You could not render it in black or white. It always came down to the strange, blended shades of grey.

I try really hard to ask people to take a look at their bookshelves. Are there female writers on it? Gay writers? Writers of color? There should be.

Gay teenagers are four times as likely to attempt suicide as straight ones. I wish they knew that there's nothing wrong with them; that they are just a different shade of normal.