I was lucky enough not to face any required summer reading lists until I went to college. So I still think of summer as the best time to read for fun.

Sometimes I can spend as long revising a manuscript as I spent writing it in the first place.

I started trying to write when I was in second or third grade.

I snorted "oh, beauty. What's that good for?" Mary stared, her eyes round. "It won you the prince, did it not?" I snorted again, I prefer to think that he was captivated by my charming personality." I giggled to let Mary know I was trying to make fun of myself.

We'll have a 'rest of our lives' now.

Nothing was more valuable than the printed word.

I don't know what you two are up to," Hobart said. "But you be careful now, you hear? Don't do anything I wouldn't do." "Well now, that doesn't restrict us very much, does it?" Mark teased back.