I think [it's necessary to accept] things that are just true about yourself: These are my faults, these are the things I'm good at, this is where I came from, this is where I didn't come from. I think happy people are the ones who have made peace with those truths and acknowledged them, and learned to use them and live with them.

Your truth really can't be twisted. It is what it is. That doesn't mean that a person can't develop and change and reinterpret their life.

I would not give up a lot of what I know about my heritage. I would not give up knowing where I came from, the good parts and the bad parts.

I'll tell you what I was most surprised to discover about my writing process, and that is that I never know what I'm doing.

I would not want to forget the first time I read The Lord of the Rings. I would never want to forget that! That was so magical to me, and that was a real eye-opening experience. I was probably 11 when I read that and already a reader, but I think that book really showed me how you can be transported and how your imagination can take you to a whole other place.

History is absolutely my thing.

It occurred to me at some point that what really links us to the past is memory, and there's so much we've forgotten.