Hope doesn't mean anything. ... Action's the only thing that counts.

When writing isn't going well-then the bad thing about being a writer is that I also have the freedom and flexibility to do something badly, and no one else can fix it for me.

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.

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.

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.

I loved to read when I was a kid, and as soon as I realized that an actual person got to make up the books I loved so much, I decided that that was the job for me.

I like playing around with the words; I love it when I feel like I've picked the exact right word to describe whatever it is I'm trying to describe