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But I honestly don't read critics. My dad reads absolutely everything ever written about me. He calls me up to read ecstatic reviews, but I always insist that I can't hear them. If you give value to the good reviews, you have to give value to the criticism.

I personally read criticism - at least by writers I enjoy - to stimulate a conversation in my own mind, and I like to think that's the function I serve for others.

The biggest critics of my books are people who never read them.

When I'm writing, I am lost in my book. Except family and close friends, I don't care about what critics, publishers or readers might think.

Sometimes literary critics review the book they wanted you to write, not the book you wrote, and that's very irksome.

If I don't like someone and I start reading their stuff, it seems like my brain will just automatically start criticizing everything that's there. It's really hard to read a book without having all this outside information telling you what to think about it.

Critics can be your most important friend. I don't read criticism of my stuff only because when it's bad, it's rough-and when it's good, it's not good enough.

When you're writing a book, you don't really think about it critically. You don't want to know too well what you're doing. First, you write the book, then you find the justification for it.

As an author, you think you know where the good parts and the bad parts are. And then you read to a group of children, and you learn when you're boring them, and you hurry through those sections to get to the parts where they're interested again. You start to get a sense of your story's rhythm and flow.

It's weird being an author because it's different than writing songs. You put so much more of yourself out there to be judged because it's a memoir. So when the reviews come in, they all feel really personal. Some people are just going to hate you no matter what. Personally, I never believe good reviews.