You seldom get a censorship attempt from a 14-year-old boy. It's the adults who get upset..

A new sickness invaded Jerry, the sickness of knowing what he had become, another animal, another beast, another violent person in a violent world, i….

I take real people and put them in extraordinary situations..

I had my bully, and it was excruciating. Not only the bully, but the intimidation I felt..

I simply write with an intelligent reader in mind. I don't think about how old they are..

A writer must take risks, defy the odds, be a bit obsessed and a little mad..

Don't miss the bus, boy. You're missing a lot of things in the world, better not miss that bus..

And he did see--that life was rotten, that there were no heroes, really, and that you couldn't trust anybody, not even yourself..

I'm weary of the battle. But a tired fighter can still be a fighter..

You could reason with someone who was halfway educated and appeal to his intelligence, but I felt helpless in the face of utter stupidity..

The rewriting is always crucial to what I do; whenever I do a scene, I always tell myself that this isn't final and that I can do it again, better. T….

I find that most books that I don't like are those in which the authors have indulged themselves. I can almost sense when they're writing something f….

...pain reaches a certain point and does not get worse but remains in all its intensity and you can survive it..

We often think that tragedies happen because of great earthquakes in people's lives. I think they sometimes occur because of small things that become….

I don't mean to be insolent. I'm truthful. I tell the truth and the truth sometimes hurts. For instance, you have bad breath, Lieutenant. I can smell….

When you get the ideas, that's a thrill; when you're writing the book and it's corning out well, that's a thrill; when you finish it and other people….

People always ask me about the role models that I'm providing for kids, and I say I can't be concerned with that. I'm not worrying about corrupting y….

I'm always telling myself as I write that I'm not really writing a novel; I'm just going to fool around with a character or an idea..

You bring up your children to be self-reliant and independent and they double-cross you and become self-reliant and independent..

I read a lot of detective stories because they always deliver. They give you a beginning, a middle, and an end - a resolution. The modern novels I re….

I'm not a reader of young adult fiction for the simple reason that these novelists are writing for adolescents, so they are not writing for me..