Trying to forget really doesn't work. In fact, it's pretty much the same as remembering. But I tried to forget anyway, and to ignore the fact that I was remembering you all the time.

Didn't you ever have a father yourself? You don't want him for a reason. You want him because he's your father.' So I figured it's because I never had a father that I don't want one now. A person can't miss something she never had.

I think the idea that in a riddle there are two answers or two doors and that you have to pick the right one is almost sort of delightful to kids who are making so many choices every day and who often don't know for a while if they've made the right one. It's not as if you make a choice and then *ding* you have some sense of "oh, this is perfect and I'm happy" - it's never that simple.

Nice tights," I snorted. Or I tried to snort, anyway. I'm not exactly sure how, though people in books are always doing it.

The writing process is not just putting down one page after another-it's a lot of writing and then rewriting, restructuring the story, changing the way things come together.

But every person has to learn to accept what has happened in the past. Without bitterness. Or there is no point in continuing with life.

I don't know whether I could visit a new neighborhood now and have a kid's set of observations about a place. I no longer can really think like a child, though I can remember thinking like one.