When I started to write, it was the '70s, and throughout that decade, we didn't have any problems with book challenges or censorship.

Its all about your determination, I think, as much as anything. There are a lot of people with talent, but its that determination.

[Writing] totally changed my life. It gave me my life. Everything opened up.

A person without curiosity may as well be dead.

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 know where "Blubber" came from. It came from stories that my daughter told me when she came home from fifth grade. There was a kid in the class who was being bullied. We didn't even call it bullying then, that's what's so weird. Victimization in the classroom. The word bully was so out, was so not in use for all those years and now it's back big time.

I'm an e-mail junkie though I'm trying to read my in-box only twice a day and to answer all at once.