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" I think I've written 40 books, and none of them have been heavy on action. I'm an introspective person. "

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" I think of every book as a single entity, and some have later gone on to become a series, often at the request of readers. "

" So many of my books, I don't want to say they have messages, but they have important things to say. "

" I always set out to tell a good story, to create a character that young people can relate to, place them in a situation that will be interesting, intriguing, eventually suspenseful. But what I find is that after I do that, then there are themes that emerge, which teachers can then use to provoke discussion and debate. "

" There will always be a place for bunnies to talk in rhyme, but that's not what I do. "

" I don't read young adult or children's books, now that my grandchildren are beyond the age of my reading to them. I read reviews, and so I'm aware of what's out there. But I tend not to read the books. "

" The grand surprise has really been the fact that being an author, which to me had always implied being a private person, actually requires you to be a public person as well, and those are two separate entities to me. "

" Kids have no sense of appropriateness. They can ask me whatever they want. You do develop a sense of intimacy with readers, and they tell you things about themselves. During a school year, I'll get e-mails asking about the books. I'll give them information, but I won't do their homework for them. "

" I was fortunate to live for 3 years in another country, and although we lived in an American compound, still as a young adolescent I did venture into the world of the Japanese with great interest and enjoyment. But many Americans never left that safe and familiar life among their own people. "

" Many of the books I loved as a kid, that even my mother read as a child, are very slow going. Today's children are not as patient. The best example of this is 'The Secret Garden,' which I adored as a child. "

" Because I have two houses, I invariably get immersed in a book and then discover it's at the other house. "

" This may sound strange, but at a very early age, at around 3, I was aware that I was smarter than the other kids. "

" People do things that turn out badly, often for the most benevolent of reasons. "

" I think when you've had success, publishers and reviewers and readers are willing to let you try something new if you've already proven yourself. They're excited about what you're doing, you have people interested in it, and actually waiting for it. It's empowering. "

" What comes to me always is a character, a scene, a moment. That's going to be the beginning. Then, as I write, I begin to perceive an ending. I begin to see a destination, although sometimes that changes. And then, of course, there's the whole middle section looming. "

" I've always been fascinated by memory and dreams because they are both completely our own. No one else has the same memories. No one has the same dreams. "

" In my writing, I focus lenses. I'm almost always seeing when I am writing. "

" When I create characters, I create a world to inhabit and they begin to feel very real for me. I don't belong in a psych ward, I don't think, but they become very real, like my own family, and then I have to say goodbye, close the door, and work on other things. "

" My mind is always on whatever next project I'm working on. "

" If we as writers could predict what readers grab on to, we would write it. "

" Oddly, the military world is one of great sameness. There is an orderly quality to life on an army base, and even the children of the military are brought up with that sense of order and sameness. "

" I believe without a single shadow of a doubt that it is necessary for young people to learn to make choices. Learning to make right choices is the only way they will survive in an increasingly frightening world. "

" I never, as a reader, have been particularly interested in dystopian literature or science fiction or, in fact, fantasy. "

" In 1952, when I was 15 and living on Governors Island, which was then First Army Headquarters, I encountered the newly-published 'The Catcher in the Rye.' Of course, that book became the iconic anti-establishment novel for my generation. "

" I was a sidelines child: never class president, never team captain, never the one with the most valentines in my box. "

" I turn to books for a feeling of companionship: for somebody knowing what I have known. "

" We live in times that are in many ways ambiguous. Maybe that's why kids want precision in what they read - they don't like that moral ambiguity. "

" If somebody takes the time, a: to read a book that I have written, and then to b: care about it enough to write me and ask questions, surely I owe them a response. "

" I would say that most of my books are contemporary realistic fiction... a couple, maybe three, fall into the 'historic fiction' category. Science fiction is not a favorite genre of mine, though I have greatly enjoyed some of the work of Ursula LeGuin. I haven't read much science fiction so I don't know other sci-fi authors. "

" People are starting to refer to 'The Giver' as a classic, but I don't know how that is defined. But if it means that 10, 20, 50 years from now kids will still be reading it, that is kind of awe-inspiring. "

" It's interesting that so many books now are published as the first in a series. It never occurred to me. Although 'The Giver' does have an ambiguous ending. I've heard about that from readers over the years. "