Do you all have a living room floor or a bedroom floor? Then you can write a book.

What inspired me to become an author? I think it was the snow in New York. I looked out the window and I said, 'Well, I have to get dressed every morning to go to teach, but if I write a book, I can stay home in my bathrobe, eat candy corn.'

All of my books are based in some way on my personal experiences, or the experiences of members of my family, or the stories kids would tell me in school.

Do you all have a living room floor or a bedroom floor? Then you can write a book.

I have no special talent, you know. I never took a writing course before I began to write.

I'm still writing in my old age. And still loving it. It fills my days. Writing is my salvation. I just get up in the morning, and I'm in this world that I scratch out and begin again and write over - and then suddenly it's lunchtime, and I'm back.

Many times in my life I've been upset about something and said to myself, "Will this matter in two years?" Not even in two months.