I'm a rewriter. That's the part I like best . . . once I have a pile of paper to work with, it's like having the pieces of a puzzle. I just have to put the pieces together to make a picture.

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

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.

Something will be offensive to someone in every book, so you've got to fight it.

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.

I am a big defender of 'Harry Potter,' and I think any book that gets kids to read are books that we should cherish, we should be thankful for them.

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