“I have such bad memories, sitting in the back of a classroom, being told, you know, everybody is going to read a paragraph, and skipping ahead to my paragraph and being mortified and trying to read it enough times so that I wouldn't stutter and stammer, getting called on, even in high school.”

“I think Americans like the practical; they like the human. And I like both those things myself, and I try and put them into my books.”