My father was a writer; I've known a lot of children of writers - daughters and sons of writers, and it can be a hard way to grow up.

I was really influenced by Joan Didion and Pauline Kael; they were both at the height of their influence when I was coming into my own as a reader.

I miss my mother very much, and I feel closest to her when I have dinner in the oven and the children are nearby playing and I'm reading a book or doing some little project.

It can be demonstrated from history that no society has ever survived after its family life deteriorated.

Female adolescence is - universally - an emotionally and psychologically intense period.

Divorce in a young-adult novel means what being orphaned meant in a fairy tale: vulnerability, danger, unwanted independence.

Girls are really looking to places that have limits and boundaries: where adults are the adults and there are rules, and where they feel safe.

Marriage remains the most efficient engine of disenchantment yet invented.

Keeping a diary is like closing your bedroom door and refusing to come out until dinnertime: it is a declaration of self.

Girls are the best readers in the world. Reading is really a way of kind of escaping so deeply into yourself and pursuing your own thoughts within the construct of a story.

If you're a writer, you just keep following the path - keep going deeper and deeper into the things that interest you.

Of all the variables in your life, your relationships may hold the greatest power to make you happy or miserable

Once you get the right image the details aren't that important.

Donald Trump is still hitting all the same notes. He's making the sale. We're hearing from his aides at every event.

It's not like I have a master plan or anything.

Avoid war, because that always pushes human beings backward.

I am rather in favour of dealing with teenage hooliganism.

People only accept change when they are faced with necessity, and only recognize necessity when a crisis is upon them.

We might question God's actions, decisions, or declarations. But we can never, ever question his zany, stunning, unquenchable affection.

Let love be your greatest aim.

Everyone should write a book, if only to see how much work goes into even the slight volume I send you.