“I just want ambitious teenagers to know it is totally fine to be quite, observant kids. Besides being a delight to your parents, you will find you have plenty of time later to catch up.”

“...but maybe it's just the genetic code of a teenager. If your parents forbid something, you have to want it.”

“You don’t have to know what you want to be. That comes later. But I want you to know what you want to be. That comes later. But I want you to want more than just having a job and muddling through life. I want you to find a passion you believe in strongly enough to risk humiliation and rejection.”

“little children never get frozen by their selfishness. Like the disciples, they come just as they are, totally self-absorbed. They seldom get it right. As parents or friends, we know all that. In fact, we are delighted (most of the time!) to find out what is on their little hearts. We don’t scold them for being self-absorbed or fearful. That is just who they are.”

“Many kids, it seemed, would find out that their parents were flawed, messed-up people later in life, and I didn't appreciate getting to know it all so strong and early.”

“A lot of teenagers write to me and say "I want to write a book. I want to get published." And those are two very different things. For the first one, that you want to write a book, I think is an excellent idea and you should totally do that because teenagers who want to write, you should be writing. You should be writing all the time like a maniac. Don't worry about the second bit, just yet because A. You need a lot of practice. You need to do it for, I'm not kidding, years. And then once you are published, it's a business. It's a job. Plus, every author I know was that teenager who sat in their room and read and wrote. That's who becomes an author, but that's what you have to do for a while before you become an author.”