You Deserve To Take Up Space.

I Would Come, Many Years Later, To Understand Why To Kill A Mockingbird Is Considered An Important Novel, But When I First Read It At 11, I Was Simply Absorbed By The Way It Evoked The Mysteries Of Childhood, Of Treasures Discovered In Trees, And Games Played With An Exotic Summer Friend.

I Didn't Want To Be Apologetic About My Love Story, And I Think To Be Willing To Write About Love You Have To Be Willing To Sound Foolish. I Wanted To Write About Foolish And Goofy Love And Different Relationships. I Wanted To Write About Interracial Relationships In A Way That Does Not Pretend As If Race Does Not Exist.

She Could Not Complain About Not Having Shoes When The Person She Was Talking To Had No Legs.

If You Start Thinking About Being Likable You Are Not Going To Tell Your Story Honestly.

If The Government Doesn't Fund Education, Which They Often Don't, Students Are Going To Stay Home And Not Go To School. It Affects Them Directly. But I'm Really Not Interested In Writing Explicitly About That. I'm Really Interested In Human Beings, And In Love, And In Family. Somehow, Politics Comes In.