On TV, stories and events are finalized in 30 or 60 minutes, or neatly tied up after a season or two. The best stories are the ones that force us to come to our own conclusions and to explain why we believe in our conclusions.

By using novels, I show ordinary kids confronting and overcoming great odds.

So this is always the key: you have to write the book you love, the book that's alive in your heart. That's the one you have to write.

None of us truly knows what we'll do when the circumstances become so overwhelming and complex that we can't even tell right from wrong.

You know not every book has to have a happy ending, but it has to have a satisfying ending.

Who wants to be used? I love to read, so books are my main friends. They're always available, always friendly, and always interesting, and they never make me choose sides.

I created a character whose motives were pure and good and she was going to go out and save the whole world. But the truth is, you can't save the whole world, but you can save one. And that was the whole thrust of the novel - to save just one.