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

Never give up! And remember, determination is as important as talent.

The truth will make you odd.

I thought ["Summer Sisters" ] would be a children's book - two girls who summer together from very different backgrounds. And then when it just kept going and going and going. They kept getting older.

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.

I loved to read, and I think any child who loves to read will read anything, including the back of the cereal box, which I did every morning.

I never thought about writing. I was married young, I was still in college, as we did then, and I had two babies before I was 25, and I loved them, and I loved taking care of them, but I was a little bit cuckoo, staying at home and not having a creative outlet.