I was Little Miss Perfect. That's where all the secrets come in, because you know damn well you are not perfect, but you think your parents want you to be. And so you pretend.

We weren't doing blow jobs when I was growing up.

I never read the "Bobbsey Twins" or "Boxcar Children."But I did remember being downtown, at the bookstore by myself and having an allowance and spending it on a Nancy Drew mysteries. And I was probably eleven, twelve.

If no one speaks out for [young readers], if they don’t speak out for themselves, all they’ll get for required reading will be the most bland books available. Instead of finding the information they need at the library, instead of finding novels that illuminate life, they will find only those materials to which nobody could possibly object... In this age of censorship I mourn the loss of books that will never be written, I mourn the voices that will be silenced — writers’ voices, teachers’ voices, students’ voices — and all because of fear.

Librarians save lives by handing the right book at the right time to a kid in need.

I like to read fiction best and I like to write fiction, too.

I never read a horse book in my life. But I thought that's what my friends were reading and that's what I should be reading. And this was "Dobbin Does This" and "Dobbin Does That."