I can't let safety and security become the focus of my life.

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.

The best books come from someplace deep inside.... Become emotionally involved. If you don't care about your characters, your readers won't either.

Ideas seem to come from everywhere - my life, everything I see, hear, and read, and most of all, from my imagination. I have a lot of imagination.

you can't deny they ever happened. You can't deny you ever loved them, love them still, even if loving them causes you pain

What I remember when I started to write was how I couldn't wait to get up in the morning to get to my characters.

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