Somewhere slightly before or after the close of our second decade, we reach a momentous milestone--childhood's end. We have left asafe place and can't go home again. We have moved into a world where life isn't fair, where life is rarely what it should be.

For some it takes a lifetime to find true love, But for the lucky ones a lifetime is merely enough to share the love they've found.

Just as children, step by step, must separate from their parents, we will have to separate from them. And we will probably suffer...from some degree of separation anxiety: because separation ends sweet symbiosis. Because separation reduces our power and control. Because separation makes us feel less needed, less important. And because separation exposes our children to danger.

[On writing her first poem at age eight:] An ode to my dead mother and father, who were both alive and pretty pissed off.

Mid-grade readers don't have short attention spans, they just have low boredom tolerance.

Love is the same as like except you feel sexier.

If ambitious fantasies make people blush, and sexual fantasies make people blush and feel guilty, fantasies of violence and death may make people blush and feel guilty-and frightened too.