I take real people and put them in extraordinary situations.

I don't mean to be insolent. I'm truthful. I tell the truth and the truth sometimes hurts. For instance, you have bad breath, Lieutenant. I can smell it from here. It must offend a lot of people. That's the truth. But how many people have told you that? Instead, they either lie or try to avoid your company.

A man I know who writes and aspires to be a novelist does very little reading, and he's not that successful. But I think it's because he's like the kid who wants to be a ballplayer and never goes to the ballpark or tries to hit a ball. So I'd say reading is the most important thing that I do, besides the actual writing. I'm always asking as I read, "How did the writer do this? Why do I suddenly have tears in my eyes? Why am I crying?"

He hated to think of his own life stretching ahead of him that way, a long succession of days and nights that were fine - not good, not bad, not great, not lousy, not exciting, not anything.

I have always had a sense that we are all pretty much alone in life, particularly in adolescence.

I use a lot of similes and metaphors when I work, simply because it's my best way of describing a building or a scene. I'm terrible at describing landscapes - trees, buildings. The inanimate things don't interest me: I always think, "Oh, no, here comes another building I have to describe." So I usually use a simile or metaphor.

Kids tell me all the time, "I don't know how you do it, but that's us in the book." That's the kind of response you want, and I can't sacrifice it for the sake of somebody worried about censorship. You have to find a way to be truthful and honest.