“Let children read whatever they want and then talk about it with them. If parents and kids can talk together, we won't have as much censorship because we won't have as much fear.”
“I hate first drafts, and it never gets easier. People always wonder what kind of superhero power they'd like to have. I wanted the ability for someone to just open up my brain and take out the entire first draft and lay it down in front of me so I can just focus on the second, third and fourth drafts.”
“It's all about your determination, I think, as much as anything. There are a lot of people with talent, but it's that determination.”
“When I was growing up, I dreamed about becoming a cowgirl, a detective, a spy, a great actress, or a ballerina. Not a dentist, like my father, or a homemaker, like my mother - and certainly not a writer, although I always loved to read.”
“The books that will never be read. And all due to the fear of censorship. As always, young readers will be the real losers.”
“The best books come from someplace inside. You don't write because you want to, but because you have to.”
“I am a big defender of 'Harry Potter,' and I think any book that gets kids to read are books that we should cherish, we should be thankful for them.”
“I'm really quite bad at coming up with plot ideas. I like to create characters and just see what will happen to them when I let them loose!”
“I never thought about writing. I was married young, I was still in college, as we did then, and I had two babies before I was 25, and I loved them, and I loved taking care of them, but I was a little bit cuckoo, staying at home and not having a creative outlet.”
“I loved to read, and I think any child who loves to read will read anything, including the back of the cereal box, which I did every morning.”