Write what you care about, what interests and intrigues you.

The truth is rarely as dreadful or as terrifying as what one imagines.

For me, a good YA novel is the best kind of comfort food.

I was an outsider, never quite part of what was going on, always looking in. It turned out to be great preparation for writing fiction.

The book that made a lasting impression was the one my mother gave each of us when she decided we were ready for our first "adult novel," Lucy Maud Montgomery's The Blue Castle.

A man notices a womans figure when she walks in a room. Women have eight million words for blue; a man says dark blue or light blue.

Our house was awash in books, and my mother doled out her favorites like they were special treats - which they were.

Phoebe Wolkind Ephron cracked wise like Dorothy Parker and looked like Katharine Hepburn.

Outlining is like putting on training wheels. It gives me the courage to write, but we always go off the outline.

My rule of writing is that no one can do what you can do, so jealousy or competitiveness are pointless. I am always happy when one of my sisters has a book published that I get to read.

It isn't important who is going to hurt me, but its important who is going to love me.

The master who fears the choices his people will make enough to take those choices away isn't worth serving.

Optimism is essential to achievement and it is also the foundation of courage and of true progress.

Not sure of my place in the world (still up for debate) and not sure what I wanted to do with my life (not really up for debate).

It would be difficult to exaggerate the degree to which we are influenced by those we influence.

Everything beeps now.

Are there Martians out there? I haven't got a clue. Is there life out there? I have no idea.

I thought not only am I going to die, but it's going to be just a torturous death that's going to go on forever.

The bottom line is that after we defeat the armed forces of Iraq, that we will want to and need to provide stability throughout that country.