[Writing] totally changed my life. It gave me my life. Everything opened up.

When you ask, did writing change my life? It totally changed my life. It gave me my life.

Concentrate on how good if feels to be alive. No matter what. Just to see the color of the sky, just to smell the air, and feel the wind in your face

My mother never talked about sex. I was on the Dr. Ruth [ Westheimer] show once - this is years and years and years ago - and it was her Mother's Day show. And I didn't know what we were going to talk about but what she decided we were going to talk about was female masturbation. My mother had invited all her girlfriends. And you know these were all women in their late seventy's maybe they were in their eighty's by then and then and they were horrified because Dr Ruth had a little she had a little chart up you know "female masturbation".

I always had stories inside my head and one day I just decided to start writing them down. I didn't actually decide.

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.

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