But don't forget who you really are. And I'm not talking about your so-called real name. All names are made up by someone else, even the one your parents gave you. You know who you really are. When you're alone at night, looking up at the stars, or maybe lying in your bed in total darkness, you know that nameless person inside you...Your muscles will toughen. So will your heart and soul. That's necessary for survival. But don't lose touch with that person deep inside you, or else you won't really have survived at all.

The bark on the tree was just a little softer.

When anything bad happens to me or someone I know, I always know who to blame. My no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather.

It's funny how you can go from hating a girl to maybe liking her, maybe liking her a lot, just because she shows a little interest in you.

I think of a book and a play, or a book and a movie, as two separate things - I don't think of it as my novel having a new life.

It's – I write the books and let the market find who reads it. I guess a young adult is anywhere from ten to fifteen.

There was something special about being in a strange place, all alone in a mass of people even if you had just screwed up your life, or perhaps especially if you had just screwed up your life.