Nothing teaches you as much about writing dialogue as listening to it.

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

I would make up [Theodor] Seuss-like books at night when I was cleaning up from the dinner, you know, putting these little kids to bed, reading them rhyming books. And so that's what I started doing. They were really bad. I have some in a box and it says on the box, it's a note to my kids you know, when I die, if you ever publish these I will come back and haunt you.

I made promises to you that I'm not sure I can keep. None of it has anything to do with you. It's just that I don't know what to do now. You must be thinking what a rotten person I am. Well, believe me, I'm thinking the same thing. I don't know how this happened or why. Maybe I can get over it. Do you think you can wait - because I don't want you to stop loving me. I keep remembering us and how it was. I don't want to hurt you ... not ever.

I don't really know exactly how it happened but I don't like the idea that I would ever have said I'm going to write about racism or puberty or bullying.

Things change…things happen…things you can’t even imagine when you’re young and full of hope.

She wondered if all the firsts in her life would go by so quickly, and be forgotten just as quickly.