Quote

I wrote my first book at 20, but my whole focus from about the age of 12 was to be a writer.

I read a great deal of science fiction with consummate pleasure between, say, the ages of 12 and 16. Then I got away from it. In my mid- to late 20s, I started trying to write it.

I write books for all age groups - young kids, teenagers and adults - because I get a range of different ideas.

I wrote fiction during my entire childhood, from age 4 to 18, and started writing plays when I went to Yale and Oxford.

I started to read at a very early age, and I just thought that books and reading were really the most wonderful thing that life had to offer. I think I wrote my very first piece of fiction at the age of 12, but then I didn't write any more for quite a long time.

I've always been drawn to writing for young readers. The books that I read growing up remain in my mind very strongly.

I began reading science fiction before I was 12 and started writing science fiction around the same time.

I love writing for young adults because they are such a wonderful audience, they are good readers, and they care about the books they read.

I suppose I started writing seriously at 16 years old. I thought I wrote a novel at 16 and sent it to New York! They sent it back because it wasn't novel.

Well, I always wanted to write from the time I was very little, and my mother encouraged me. She wrote a journal from the time she was 15 up until about the age of 76.