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.

Do not tell me what to do and do not tell me what I can't do.

I thought [books ban] was crazy. Really my thoughts were "This is America, we don't do this here" but of course I know a lot better now. And I wasn't the only one. Norma Klein was writing at the same time. Her books were going. So many of us. When you say to me, no you can't do this I say, oh yes I can.

Little kids are amazing. They seem able to adjust to anything.

My insides still turn over when he looks at me that certain way.

I was sick all the time, one exotic illness after another, which lasted throughout my twenties. My worst decade. But from the day the first book was accepted, I never got sick again. Writing changed my life.