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

I like to know what I'm celebrating before I put on a party hat.

Unlike my mother, my father does not cry quietly. His wails roll out like a wave of pain, and I scramble to roll up my window. My mother cannot hear that. I cannot bear to hear it myself. I am not used to my father's crying. I've had no time to harden my heart against him.

It's just so much fun to make up characters, situations, and everything else about a story. I have so much freedom and flexibility to do whatever I want.

Nothing was more valuable than the printed word.

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

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