I work full-time in a used bookstore. I get up. I drink a cup of coffee. I think, The last thing I want to do is write. Then I go to the computer and write.

Everything I write comes from my childhood in one way or another. I am forever drawing on the sense of mystery and wonder and possibility that pervaded that time of my life.

It distresses me that parents insist that their children read or make them read. The best way for children to treasure reading is to see the adults in their lives reading for their own pleasure.

My goal is two pages a day, five days a week. I never want to write, but I'm always glad that I have done it. After I write, I go to work at the bookstore.

I am single and childless, but I have lots of friends and I am an aunt to three lovely children.

Every well-written book is a light for me. When you write, you use other writers and their books as guides in the wilderness.

Understand, I had absolutely no interest in writing; I wanted to be a Writer.

Reading should not be presented to children as a chore, a duty. It should be offered as a gift.

I didn't know anything about writing a screenplay, but somehow I ended up rewriting a screenplay.

I always write with music. It takes me a while to figure out the right piece of music for what I'm working on. Once I figure it out, that's the only thing I'll play.

I like to think of myself as a storyteller.

I have a Bachelor of Arts in English, which means I had a lot of formal training in reading.

I think of myself as an enormously lucky person.

I am busier now than I ever imagined I would be, but I feel blessed in that I have found what I am supposed to be doing with my life. It's wonderful to tell stories and have people listen to them.

I was born in Philadelphia and currently live in Minneapolis. I write for both children and adults.

I hate to cook and love to eat.

I work full-time in a used bookstore. I get up. I drink a cup of coffee. I think, The last thing I want to do is write. Then I go to the computer and write.

My father leaving the family shaped who I was and how I looked at the world. By the same token, my father telling me fairy tales that he had made up shaped me profoundly, too.

Hands down, the biggest thrill is to get a letter from a kid saying, I loved your book. Will you write me another one?

I thought I was going nowhere. Now I can see there was a pattern.

I'm at the mercy of whatever character comes into my head.

I didn't start working on children's books until I got a job at a book warehouse on the children's floor. When I started reading some of the books, I was so impressed.

There ain’t no way you can hold onto something that wants to go, you understand? You can only love what you got while you got it.

But I love New York. I used to set my alarm clock when I was there, and get up at 4am and get a coffee, just because I could.

I like my coffee light.

The ability to deal with people is as purchasable a commodity as sugar or coffee and I will pay more for that ability than for any other under the sun.

A leaf fluttered in through the window this morning, as if supported by the rays of the sun, a bird settled on the fire escape, joy in the task of coffee, joy accompanied me as I walked.

They say you can smoke 400 cigs a day and drink 20 cups of coffee, but you can't have a line or a drink again.

I could serve coffee using my rear as a ledge.

There is nothing like being left alone again, to walk peacefully with oneself in the woods. To boil one's coffee and fill one's pipe, and to think idly and slowly as one does it.

I wake up some mornings and sit and have my coffee and look out at my beautiful garden, and I go, 'Remember how good this is. Because you can lose it.'

When traveling with someone, take large does of patience and tolerance with your morning coffee.

Americans are making coffee a bigger part of their lives, expanding attitudes and behaviors that are driving new levels of consumption.

I can't sit around having coffee. I have all these appointments, and a lot of my friends sit around having coffee talking about the jobs they didn't get.

In the morning we received some very thin coffee. For lunch we had potato soup with a few pieces of meat in it, in the evening we had a very thin meat soup with some potatoes in it.

If I asked for a cup of coffee, someone would search for the double meaning.

I was seeing everything through pain. I would roll out of bed and do my exercises. I had to do that to work out the remainder of the pain pills. I would drink coffee and go to the set and plunge myself so far into my work.

When the honour is given to that scientist personally the happiness is sweet indeed. Science is, on the whole, an informal activity, a life of shirt sleeves and coffee served in beakers.

Coffee and cigarettes, that's one of my weaknesses.

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.

Coffee and smoking are the last great addictions.

Television is not real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

When I was 6 years old, I was in a rock band that was horrible called "Dead End." The name kind of described us. People liked us; we would go and perform at coffee houses and stuff.

Like everyone else who makes the mistake of getting older, I begin each day with coffee and obituaries.

It's about avoiding reality through various escape routes that become addictions and lead to Hell. My character is addicted to television, chocolate, coffee, to her dream of her son, which has no basis in reality.

I never drink coffee at lunch. I find it keeps me awake for the afternoon.

I never let politics get personal. You can have the most intense, heated debate on issues, and so long as you keep it on issues, you can go out and have coffee afterwards and you're good friends.

In my next life, I want to be tall and thin, parallel park and make good coffee. But for now, I have lots of stuff to work out in my life, but I'll have that until the day I die. I want to write more books.

So I did quit coffee and I did quit smoking. But I haven't managed that with drinking!