You're responsible for yourself. You messed up your life, and it's up to you to fix it. No one else is going to do it for you -- for any of you.

You make the decision: Whom did God punish?

The best morals kids get from any book is just the capacity to empathize with other people, to care about the characters and their feelings. So you don't have to write a preachy book to do that. You just have to make it a fun book with characters they care about, and they will become better people as a result.

Zero wasnt worried, " When you spend your whole life living in a shole", he said, "the only way you can go is up.

My parents played bridge, and I remember being fascinated watching them. I sometimes got a chance to sit in on a hand, which I loved. But then I didn't actually play on my own for about 30 years.

It is better to take many small steps in the right direction than to make a great leap forward only to stumble backward.

I never think of an entire book at once. I always just start with a very small idea. In 'Holes,' I just began with the setting; a juvenile correctional facility located in the Texas desert. Then I slowly make up the story, and rewrite it several times, and each time I rewrite it, I get new ideas, and change the old ideas around.