And okay, fair enough, but there is this unwritten contract between author and reader and I think not ending your book kind of violates that contract.

We need never be hopeless because we can never be irreperably broken.

Finally, I decided that the proper strategy was to stare back. Boys do not have a monopoly on the Staring Business, after all. So I looked him over and soon it was a staring contest. After a while the boy smiled, and then finally his blue eyes glanced away. When he looked back at me, I flicked my eyebrows up to say, I win. He shrugged

But my miracle was different. My miracle was this: out of all the houses in all the subdivisions in all of Florida, I ended up living next door to Margo Roth Spiegelman.

He responded a few minutes later. Okay. I wrote back. Okay. He responded: Oh, my God, stop flirting with me!

I fear oblivion. I fear it like the proverbial blind man who's afraid of the dark.

I think that most of us [writers] would rather have an audience than countless riches. If we wanted to be rich, we'd be doing smething else.