I huff and puff and struggle with every sentence, paragraph and page - sometimes every word as well.

Readers are made by readers - it is so obvious it is almost banal to say it.

You become a reader by reading the literature, not by reading the handbooks about it.

You get to be wiser by storying the world and seeing it through other forms of consciousness than your own.

Fame, money and the size of the market are not very important to me. What is, is writing a book that is worth doing and then publishing it. I don't write books for entertainment, for people to pass the time then throw away.

I will not compromise on language or content. At 15, people can handle the same language as me, they're just as complicated as me and are very interested in thinking about important questions for the first time.

When you are in your teenage years you are consciously experiencing everything for the first time, so adolescent stories are all beginnings. There are never any endings.