I think people assume that women write about the domestic sphere. Women write about relationships and family. Men do, too, but then it's the Great American Novel.

Usually the kids are portrayed as very one-dimensional. Like these mindless animals that just have three things on their minds: getting laid, getting drunk, and driving real fast over Mulholland Drive.

I just did in my early twenties what most did when they were teenagers, being free and exploring and making mistakes, but I did it in France. I did it privately.

I don't have control over how people choose to perceive me. The only thing I have control over is my writing.

I'm so associated with being young and being with a teenager.

I never really felt like I belonged in California.

Whenever people ask me how I manage to get through this whole crazy time of being incredibly famous and sort of an icon and supposedly a role model and all of this insanity, I always cite my family and then books. I don't know what I would have done without books.