“A female character can: Like babies, Be devoted to her lover, Cry, Be gentle, Be scared, Be uncertain, Take advice, and still be a YA heroine”

“YA heroines can have romances that are subplots: can have goals other than getting/keeping a man: can put their lovers second. JUST LIKE YAheroes DO!”

“‎YA heroines can choose to have sex & they can choose not to without either decision becoming the focus of their story.”

“A YA heroine does not have to pick up a weapon nor wear men's clothing to be equal to her male counterparts.”

“It is possible for YA heroines to go an entire book without discussing their love lives.”

“(CBI lecture, Dublin, 2008. Speaking on the challenges presented by The Moorehawke Trilogy to the YA reader)You can't choose any of these characters and say, 'Yes! I'm completely on your side. You are the good guy! You are the one I agree with.' Because at some stage along the way every single one of these characters will let you down. They may not want to. They may have no choice. But they will let you down.”

“On the Hunger Games Fan Race fail and the portrayal of POC in fantasy literature:It is as if the POC in the text are walking around with a great big red sign over them for some editors and it reads I AM NOT A REAL CHARACTER. I AM A PROBLEM YOU MUST DEAL WITH. The white characters are permitted to saunter about with their physical descriptions hanging out all over the place, but best not make mention of dark skin or woolly/curly hair or dark eyes (Unless, of course, that character is white. None of my white-skinned dark-eyed characters had any problem being described as such. And I’m pretty sure that Sól’s curly hair never gave anyone a single pause for thought.) As I said, I understand the desire not to define a POC simply by their physical attributes, and I understand cutting physical descriptions if no other character is described physically – but pussyfooting about in this manner with POC is doing nothing but white wash the characters themselves. It’s already much too hard to get readers to latch onto the fact that some characters may not be caucasian, why must we dance about their physical description as if it were some kind of shameful dirty little secret. You know what it reminds me of? It reminds me of the way homosexuality used to only ever be hinted at in texts. It was up to the reader to ‘read between the lines’ or ‘its there if you look for it’ and all that total bullshit which used to be the norm.”