Everyone has an identity crisis when they are 16 or 17 years old.

My books usually end where they began. I try to bring characters back to a point that is familiar but different because of the growth that they have gone through.

I don't yell back at my mother. When I'm angry or scared or upset, I don't yell. I stay quiet. I've seen how she is, how she would get with Kent and with me and with other people, life if someone at the pharmacy got in the wrong line or asked too long a question, or if someone on the bus accidentally bumped her. I've watched her my whole life, the way people react to her. It doesn't actually help you get what you want, yelling and being like that. It only makes people think bad of you.

The importance of our connection, what it meant to find each other again, the way it made what happened to us and between us not be a waste, not be for nothing. He would know, he had to know, that not saying good-bye would be the worst end of all.

I never had a connection like that to anyone, where every day you think about what you’ll tell them and you wonder what they’re doing, and you know they’re wondering what you’re doing.

I have no desire to go back to San Francisco.

There's a lot that is awful. That's the struggle of getting old. To make sure you don't let what's hard...obscure the beauty.