I'm incredibly flattered when people tell me that my books helped them through high school. Because of my own experience, the thought that something I wrote might help someone who felt the way I did when I was a teen...that's huge. It awes me.

I find that the more I depend on real life, the less interesting the story is. It's much more common for me to take something that almost-happened, or I wish had happened, and then follow that possibility.

Teenagers are a great audience and they are fearless about asking what they want to know.

“In Truth,” I said, “there are no rules other than you have to tell the truth.” “How do you win?” he asked. “That,” I said, “is such a boy question.

When you can't save yourself or your heart, it helps to be able to save face.

Sometimes a question can hurt more than an answer.

Some people, they can't just move on, you know, mourn and cry and be done with it. Or at least seem to be. But for me... I don't know. I didn't want to fix it, to forget. It wasn't something that was broken. It's just...something that happened. And like that hole, I'm just finding ways, every day, of working around it. Respecting and remembering and getting on at the same time.