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When I was growing up in the Philippines, the story that was read to me most was Pinocchio.

I could have made a small film and kept all the money from 'Life is Beautiful'. Instead, I spent more money than I had on 'Pinocchio', a very risky film.

When I was little, I had to write down what I wanted to be when I grew up, and I wrote, 'I want to be an actress-singer-dancer because you can be a rich fairy princess and tell someone off.'

One of the reasons I began to write was because I wanted stories for my children where the characters spoke as they did and had similar life experiences.

I pretty much always knew I wanted to be a writer. I was writing goofy stories when I was 7 or 8. That was what I call 'wishful-thinking writing.' I grew up in the city and always wanted a horse, but there was no way I was getting a horse. So I wrote all these stories about kids who had horses. It's still fun entering these other worlds.

I actually felt like I was starting a new career as a news reporter while playing in 'Pinocchio.'

I wanted to write something in a voice that was unique to who I was. And I wanted something that was accessible to the person who works at Dunkin Donuts or who drives a bus, someone who comes home with their feet hurting like my father, someone who's busy and has too many children, like my mother.

I wanted to become a writer. I enjoyed reading as a child.

I always wanted to be an artist, writer and poet since I was seven, and one has to live long enough to evolve as an artist and do one's finest work.

Well, writing was what I wanted to do, it was always what I wanted to do. I had novels to write so I wrote them.