We all make mistakes, but we need to learn from them and move on. You can own a mistake, or the mistake will own you.

Make sure your characters are worth spending ten hours with. That’s how long it takes to read a book. Reading a book is like being trapped in a room for ten hours with those characters. Think of your main characters as dinner guests. Would your friends want to spend ten hours with the characters you’ve created? Your characters can be loveable, or they can be evil, but they’d better be compelling. If not, your reader will be bored and leave.

There was a culture that came out of the self-esteem movement which was don't anybody keep track of the goals. The kids keep track, but nobody keep track of the goals because we don't want the kids to have the experience of losing. And in depriving them losing, thinking it scarred them to lose, we made losing so taboo, so unspeakable, that we instead made losing more scary to kids, not less scary.

Curiosity is a raw and genuine sign from deep inside our tangled psyches, and we'd do well to follow the direction it points us in.

There is nothing more genuine than breaking away from the chorus to learn the sound of your own voice.

Books have been my classroom and my confidant. Books have widened my horizons. Books have comforted me in my hardest times. Books have changed my life.

I think when a reader reads a whole book - which takes six to ten hours - that’s kind of a gift to the author. The gift of close, undivided attention. To who else do we listen so closely for eight straight hours? And when readers give that gift to me, I’m grateful for it.