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In my position you have to read when you want to write and to talk when you would like to read.

Writing requires an intense inner focus, and sometimes you need to express outward, physically or socially.

If there's anything I'm keen to get better at in my writing, then it's the writing of prose as opposed to the writing of dialogue.

Many novice writers, students in particular, think that writing is little more than copying down their self-talk, the palaver of the voices they hear in their heads. Of course, self-talk is thinking, and writing begins with thinking.

Writing's a great skill, but thinking's a better one.

Everything that you read is an influence on everything you write, and you want to draw as many elements into your work as you can.

When I'm writing, I'm just in it and trying to figure out what seems best.

I'm always looking at ways of shaking up the writing experience because I think it helps.

One of the things that writing and speech can do is express what we're thinking one thought at a time.

I read everything aloud, novels as well as picture books. I believe the eye and ear are different listeners. So as writers, we have to please both.