I always want readers to lose themselves completely in a story and feel something, whatever the book invites them to feel. That experience is the best takeaway any book can offer.

I don't believe in miracles, but if the need is great, a girl might make her own miracle.

The people you save won't celebrate you. They'll gather the wood and cheer while you burn.

Did we risk our lives to defend a just society, where guilt must be proven and not assumed? Or are we no better than the oppressive kings from whom our fathers fled?

Like a soldier back from battle you fill my vision. You're a flood, a baptism I'd forgotten, and the force of you leaves me breathless.

The fuzzy boundary lines between different readership ages have always puzzled me, so these days I just write what comes, and assume I can fix the mess later with an editor's help.

And what rules of economy dictate that a boy without a foot is more whole than a girl without a tongue?

I nod. Young love is not always forever. I know.

It's a cold world when no one will touch you.

I have to trust that if a story is strong, it can find its readership, and good editors can steer me well.

A miracle that can never be: your face, your hands, pledged to me.

I cut myself because you wouldn't let me cry.I cried because you wouldn't let me speak.I spoke because you wouldn't let me shine.I shone because I thought you loved me...

Stop beating yourself up over all the days you didn’t work on your story. Focus on what you can do today.Sit down, and write.

The pursuit of the difficult makes men strong

I'm layering away: sauce, noodles, I belong to you, cheese, sauce, my heart is yours, noodles, cheese, I hear your soul in your music, cheese, cheese, CHEESE.

I love filming in Britain.

Look inside, without anyone else's validation understand that you are valuable, talented, unique, and worthy.

The frankest and freest and privatest product of the human mind and heart is a love letter.

The line comes before meaning.

Anger is temporary madness.