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.

The only thing that works with writing is that you care so passionately about it yourself, that you make someone else care passionately about it.

[ Adult novels] was the world of grownups. There was nothing about teenagers.

I meet people on the street or at book signings and they tend to treat me as if they know me, as if we're connected. It's great.

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.

My mother was a cracker jack typist. And she would come in and sit at my house and type the final type script before I would then send it to the publisher. And it was nice for us.

I know where "Blubber" came from. It came from stories that my daughter told me when she came home from fifth grade. There was a kid in the class who was being bullied. We didn't even call it bullying then, that's what's so weird. Victimization in the classroom. The word bully was so out, was so not in use for all those years and now it's back big time.