The kids I talk to are readers, and the craziest, the most dedicated readers you will ever see.

I have no phobias. Phobias are irrational. My fears are rational and CAREFULLY CULTIVATED, like roses.

Sometimes people graduate but they don't leave. They hang around for years, for no reason. I would think of ghosts like that, I decided.

They weren't pressed together as closely as normal, but his shoulder bumped hers, then remained there. It was very subtle, and possibly even accidental, but it was enough.

No one hid their interest when I walked into the room. I'm not sure if it was the news about Boo or my general appearance. At home, people would have asked. People would have been crawling all over me for information. At Wexford, they seemed to extract what they wanted to know by covert staring.

Being an author means, almost by definition, that you make up characters and then complicate their lives. That's it, really. You make up characters and give them problem after problem after problem.

The essay I had to read was called, "An Essay on Criticism" by Alexander Pope. The first challenge was that the essay was, in fact, a very long poem in "heroic couplets". If something is called an essay, it should be an essay.