When people meet me, many times they're very surprised because they expect someone who is kind of wacky with seven piercings and very hip and cool and New York City, and I'm not.

As a writer, you can't allow yourself the luxury of being discouraged and giving up when you are rejected, either by agents or publishers. You absolutely must plow forward.

I'm like the guy who prepares your taxes or a dentist. I'm very conservative and boring in a lot of ways.

I can't tell you how much I love Target and Costco, that kind of culture, because it's something I never felt a part of. I've always felt like a tourist because I have never fit in anywhere.

I was brought up to look after my parents. My family were Polish Jews, and we lived with my grandmother, with uncles and aunts and cousins all around, and I thought everybody lived like that.

I had a lot of different reasons for writing the book, but at its core was the desire to write for black teenage girls growing up reading books they were absent from. That was my experience as a child. 'Children of Blood and Bone' is a chance to address that. To say you are seen.

Employee fathers need to step up to the plate and put their family needs on the table.

I would rather start a family than finish one.