Do you all have a living room floor or a bedroom floor? Then you can write a book.

Everything in my life affects my writing. There are no separate parts of my life.

I cannot outline. I do not know what the next thing is going to happen in the book until it comes out of my fingers.

I have no special talent, you know. I never took a writing course before I began to write.

I loved teaching. It was my world. I only left because I was overwhelmed with three careers - teaching, writing, and my family.

If you have a friend, things are better than if you didn't have a friend.

Outside of family, writing is essential. To me, it's like breathing.

Revision is the heart of writing. Every page I do is done over seven or eight times.

The reasons kids get into trouble in one way or another is because - Who ever told them they were special?

To me, family is everything. I want children to realize how important their families are and what a support system a family is.

All of my books are based in some way on my personal experiences, or the experiences of members of my family, or the stories kids would tell me in school.

Anyone who has problems, or worries, anyone who laughs and cries, anyone who feels can write. It's only talking on paper... talking about the things that matter to us.

I want to see children curled up with books, finding an awareness of themselves as they discover other people's thoughts. I want them to make the connection that books are people's stories, that writing is talking on paper, and I want them to write their own stories. I'd like my books to provide that connection for them.

Sometimes when I visit schools, kids will interview me for the school newspaper. They ask me questions and my answers tend to go on and on, and they try to write down everything I'm saying as quickly as they can. And one day, a kid holds up her hand and said, 'Do you think you could just answer 'yes' or 'no?' Aren't kids wonderful?

What inspired me to become an author? I think it was the snow in New York. I looked out the window and I said, 'Well, I have to get dressed every morning to go to teach, but if I write a book, I can stay home in my bathrobe, eat candy corn.'

When I sit and talk with a person, I'm not always paying attention. I'm looking at the person and saying, 'What is it about his or her life that appeals to me?'