I realized it was like looking into the sun—you shouldn't do it, because you'd turn your face away and be blind to everything else.

To be truly popular, it has to look like something you are, when in reality, it's what you make yourself.

And the very act of living is a tide; at first it seems to make no difference at all, and then one day you look down and see how much pain has eroded

There are some nights when you just want to know there's someone else besides you in this wide world.

Stem cell research has become such a polarizing issue in America... and I wanted to bring it down to the personal level, instead of the political.

Close a door, and you'd still feel a breeze through the window.

I don't base my books on my life (thank goodness) and I don't pick the topic first. In fact, the topic picks me - via a question I can't answer as a mom, a wife, a woman, an American. I find myself wondering "What if..." and it blossoms into a whole novel.