I deal with unhappy marriages a lot. I've never been married, I'm single.

I want to keep meeting new people, enlarging my circle of friends. I have great friends now... really good people. But I'm always ready for what comes next.

My father was a very unhappy person, very sarcastic, and my mother was very nervous and worried about what people thought. They weren't monsters, but it wasn't a good childhood.

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.

At age 12, I was put on tranquilizers when I should have gotten help. There was nothing major and awful, I just didn't feel my family was supportive and emotionally generous.

Sometimes it's easier to show than it is to tell.

Normally, I name my characters after famous comedians.

I made the choice long ago to write about real life. And life is both serious and funny.

When my father would yell at me, I told myself someday I'd use it in a book.

I try to be careful because technology changes so much over the years. But some things don't change. Kids and parents have disagreements, kids try to manipulate, parents try to sit down with rules and regs. That part never changes.

I deal with unhappy marriages a lot. I've never been married, I'm single.

I'm very lucky. I'm very fortunate that my books have never gone out of print - none of them.

I tried to write with someone else once before, but it was not successful.

None of my characters seem to have had sex yet - I haven't written about that. And I wouldn't want to deal with what's happening in Oregon - the school shootings.

I didn't expect to be doing a whole bunch of Amber Browns. And because it was just one book, and the father had moved away, I didn't realize I was going to have to deal more with shared custody, divorce and all those issues.

I wish I had had my books when I was a kid, I do.

The books are funny and sad, and that's what people respond to.

I think my books talk about kids learning to like and respect themselves and each other. You can't write a message book; you just tell the best story you know how to tell.

There are people who have too much space between their ears, and given the time, do nothing but free fall forever inside their head. It's a spooky thing to be left alone inside an angry inner-verse.

I remember seeing this picture my mother had of Dick Clark. It didn't inspire me to be an actor or anything, but when I did 'American Dreams' with Dick Clark, my mother came out, and she showed him this picture of them that was taken 35 years earlier. It was great.

I don't really like the word 'religion.' To me, that's like rules and regulations and paying money to send up prayers. That kind of all weirds me out, honestly.

I take time to open up with people. But once I know you, I'm fine. I'm a shy person.

Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us but is always the result of a good conscience good health occupation and freedom in all just pursuits.

And that's the great thing about living the Christian life and trying to live by faith, is you're trying to get better every day. You're trying to improve.

I think this industry can be tough on everyone. You have to surround yourself with supportive people and know when to put your foot down and do what's best for you and your family. The first few years in the music industry can be a steep learning curve, and I've definitely developed a thicker skin!

Trouble has no necessary connection with discouragement. Discouragement has a germ of its own as different from trouble as arthritis is different from a stiff joint.

As for morality, well that's all tied up with the question of consciousness.

It is my belief that many who think they dislike poetry are really poetical in their natures and are indebted to it, more than they imagine, for the success they may have achieved, even in practical pursuits, and for the enjoyment their lives have afforded them.

London is too full of fogs and serious people. Whether the fogs produce the serious people, or whether the serious people produce the fogs, I don't know.

I enjoy the element of pushing yourself, learning something new, whether it's a dance step, a scene, an emotion.

We were the Spice Boys.

Make sure that you always follow your heart and your gut, and let yourself be who you want to be, and who you know you are. And don't let anyone steal your joy.

Everybody always says that I'm the girl next door, which makes me think that y'all must have a lot of weird next-door neighbours.

The carpenter stretcheth out his rule he marketh it out with a line he fitteth it with planes and he marketh it out with the compass and maketh it after the figure of a man according to the beauty of a man that it may remain in the house.

The science tells us that if we fail to reduce global warming pollution, global temperatures will rise to dangerous levels and unleash devastating extreme weather events and accelerate destructive sea level rise.

Don't presume that your loved ones know that you love them - say it, and say it often!

But when I went to Hiroshima and began to study or just listen to people's descriptions of their work, it was quite clear they were talking about death all the time, about people dying all around them, about their own fear of death.

I majored in Computer Science at U.C. Berkeley and worked as a software developer for a couple of years. Then I taught high school computer science for over a decade and a half in Oakland, California.

Destiny: A tyrant's authority for crime and a fool's excuse for failure.

There is no terror in the bang only in the anticipation of it.

Ads featuring real women and real beauty are such a necessary component to offset the potentially dangerous programming out there for little girls.

Parents can shape a child, but a great teacher can, too.