You can teach people a lot about craft and various techniques, and you can certainly teach them to appreciate, but you cannot give them spirit or soul if it's not there.

What are you thinking?” She asks. -That you are beautiful. That not everyone could see it. I almost became the kind of person who could not.

Point of view changes so much as time goes on. And it's important to acknowledge that the truth is multifaceted. And yet that conversation has a very different meaning now because of this whole alternative facts thing, calling everything you don't like "fake news."

The art of integrating the ego and the impulse for empathy in a dynamic call and response.

When my first book came out, it was very disorienting. My health went south. I didn't know how to relate to people. I thought, "Now I have this way to be in the world that's going to be wonderful. It'll be like driving a great car, really streamlined." But it actually was difficult because, if you have a public persona, something you don't fully have control over, it's more like being in a car with controls you don't really understand.

Whenever young writers ask me for advice, I always say you have to be able to take a lot of rejection because, unless you're very lucky, that's what's going to happen.

I became very aware of how important it is to connect with children - possibly for the children, if they're in the mood for that - but certainly for the adults.