The reasons kids get into trouble in one way or another is because - Who ever told them they were special?

Sometimes when I visit schools, kids will interview me for the school newspaper. They ask me questions and my answers tend to go on and on, and they try to write down everything I'm saying as quickly as they can. And one day, a kid holds up her hand and said, 'Do you think you could just answer 'yes' or 'no?' Aren't kids wonderful?

When I sit and talk with a person, I'm not always paying attention. I'm looking at the person and saying, 'What is it about his or her life that appeals to me?'

Everything in my life affects my writing. There are no separate parts of my life.

I get DMs all the time: kids who don't know how to come out to their parents, parents who don't know how to deal with their kids who are gay. I try to give the best advice I can.

Most people I talked to, they'd be like, your first is your worst, because you go on and everybody's probably done more than you, so you get that sense that they're on a whole different level. But they just made me feel like a piece of the family.

You would think with me living in Los Angeles I would go to the beach all the time, but we don't. It's the same as visiting the Statue of Liberty. If you don't live in N.Y.C., it's the first stop on your family vacation, but if you live there, you only go if you have relatives visiting from out of town!

I was not interested in luxuries because I had an elegant life as a child. My family, very aristocratic, one of the richest in Colombia, educated me like a princess, in the English style.