I remember when I was working on All Alone in the Universe, and Robin Roy was my editor. When I first sent it to her, she said kids this age don't want pictures in their books.

In some ways I'm very structured.

I felt ten years old and a thousand years old, but I didn't know how to be my own age. I had never felt that way before, but now I feel like that a lot.

I love when I'm trying to do something I don't know how to do, and it kind of figures itself out along the way. And that means messing up a lot. That means throwing away a lot of drawings.

I generally have an idea where I want to go, but I don't know how I'm going to get there.

A long time ago, I had an idea to make a book for preschoolers who had older siblings who were going to school.

I had a general outline of subjects. The way I start my days is my husband brings me a thermos of coffee up to the bedroom.

I knew what infinity was. Being a previous art student, I knew about some art concepts.

Some of it just involved thinking about, for example, the different kinds of science, what chemistry is.

I [drinking coffee] for about an hour, I get dressed and go down in my studio, and that's a different kind of working.

In the bedroom time I have generated thoughts, and then in the studio I take those thoughts and try to shape them into something.

Donald Trump is worse than any horror story I've written.

I would love to work in a Bollywood film as there is so much drama and colour in the films there.

In light of Jeb Bush's recent fumbles on Iraq , maybe the Clinton campaign is making the smart move here by not saying.

I believe the nearest I've come to perfect love was with a young coal-miner when I was about 16.

My two must-haves are my cell phone and my MacBook Pro laptop, which allows me to update my Web site from wherever I am, whether I'm in Africa or in Sun Valley skiing.

There is a sense of competition in Zen. You are competing with your thoughts and trying to overcome them.

I'm not too fond of the hard work and the constant battle with self-doubt that goes on when I write, but I figure that's part of the territory.

American literature has always been immigrant.

I am a human being. I am not an actor.

You're dealing with a lot of silly people in the marketplace; it's like a great big casino and everyone else is boozing. If you can stick with Pepsi, you should be OK.