Heavy petting, that was fun! That was good. And frankly, you know I wish kids would go back to it. It's very satisfying. And it's not as scary. So many girls, you know this. I mean they are having what we call sex. Right? They're having intercourse. They don't want to, they don't get anything out of it.

I was shy, but I stood up in front of the class and I gave my report.I was reporting on books that I didn't want to read. I was inventing books that I didn't want to read.

Another thing all writers have in common is we're all observers. We pay attention to detail.

Something will be offensive to someone in every book, so you've got to fight it.

Concentrate on how good if feels to be alive. No matter what. Just to see the color of the sky, just to smell the air, and feel the wind in your face

It was a such a surprise, such an absolute shocking surprise to me to not know what you're doing and to find out that this thing that you don't even know how to do, that you're sure you don't know how to do, speaks to so many people and touches so many people in some way.

The parent reads the book. The kid reads the book and then they can talk about the characters instead of talking about themselves. You know there's a connection even if you don't talk about it when you read the same books.