The child from 9 to 12 interests me very much. And so, those were the years that I like to write about, when I'm writing.

If all you leave in the library is books that you think speak to everyone, what are you going to have? You'd have nothing.

What's the point of thinking about how it's going to end when it's just the beginning?

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.

I loved to read, and I think any child who loves to read will read anything, including the back of the cereal box, which I did every morning.

I'm a more skilled writer now, but after 23 books it's harder to be fresh and that's really important to me. I don't want to write the same thing over and over again.

When I was growing up, I dreamed about becoming a cowgirl, a detective, a spy, a great actress, or a ballerina. Not a dentist, like my father, or a homemaker, like my mother - and certainly not a writer, although I always loved to read.