Well, it's simple to love someone," she said. "But it's hard to know when you need to say it out loud.

I never write with any kind of message, and I don't think that this book, 'Goodbye, Stranger' has a message in the capital M form of the word but I do hope it makes people ask themselves questions about what they think.

For me one of the most important things is not feeling like you have to protect yourself if you're with a real friend.

I think if you can take something out and it doesn't change the book, it doesn't need to be there.

If you took every tear cried by everyone on earth on one single day and put them in a container, how big would that container need to be? Could you fill a water tower? Three water towers? It's one of those unknowable things. There has to be an answer, but we'll never know what it is.

I love a book that makes me ask questions about what I think or how I see the world or how I feel, so I hope that 'Goodbye, Stranger' is that kind of book for some people.

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.