Rebecca Stead quotes:

I loved reading all kinds of books, but I particularly loved books like 'Red Planet' by Robert Heinlein, which very few people read anymore but is a wonderful science fiction story.

There was a boy in my building who was my best friend when I was growing up. There was also a mysterious person on my corner who we called the Laughing Man.

I felt vulnerable and very much between friends. I remember walking down the hallway and thinking I had no way of knowing what was coming, literally. This wasn't because I had some horrific bullying story, but because of a steady drip of negativity.

I never had a favourite book! I liked all kinds of things - science fiction, so I read Heinlen and Ray Bradbury, and I also liked reading about kids like myself, so I read Judy Blume and Norma Klein and Paula Danzinger and a lot of other writers. I also read James Herriot!

I think that's one of the most important things that books do: not to teach you anything, but to help you teach yourself by just being in the world of the book and having your own thoughts and reactions and noticing your own reactions and thoughts and learning about yourself that way.

Mom's always telling me to smile and hoping I'll turn into a smiley person, which, to be honest, is kind of annoying.

In so many ways, being a literary agent is an irresistible job to me. Not only does it involve all the things I love - being an advocate for others, problem solving, and going to meetings - yes, that's true, I love meetings, though everyone says it's bizarre! - but most importantly, I love working with people whose writing excites me.

There's this trouble with books for me because I'm terrible at thinking of titles. The truth is, even with the titles that I've landed on in the end, they always feel wrong. I think it's because of this whole problem of having to package your book in a certain way.

Middle school' is used as shorthand for a time when things change. It's a time a lot of kids feel like they don't even have one good friend.

Try really, really hard not to judge your own work too harshly.

Life is a million different dots making one gigantic picture. And maybe the big picture is nice, maybe it's amazing, but if you're standing with your face pressed up against a bunch of black dots, it's really hard to tell.

I grew up mostly an only child. My dad remarried when I was a teenager. And then I had two stepbrothers. And then my dad had a second child. So I have a brother from the time I was 15. But I really grew up feeling like an only child.

From age nine, my friends and I were on the streets, walking home, going to each other's houses, going to the store. I really wanted to write about that: the independence that's a little bit scary but also a really positive thing in a lot of ways.

I think that my first book - I was trying to write the kind of book I would have loved as a kid. So it's sort of, like, a book inspired by my childhood reading and the passion that I felt about reading when I was a kid.

I personally find the ideas that girls need to cover their shoulders in school a little bit strange... when we're telling girls, you know, 'You have to cover your shoulders because otherwise you're a distraction to other people in your class,' probably something is wrong.

Beautiful and fresh, Girl Saves Boy is full of the absolute truth-life is complicated. I could not put it down.

As a reader, I much prefer to read a book where people embody all kinds of ideas and everybody is making mistakes.

I asked myself what it was that I wanted from writing and where my connection with books began, and the answer to that question was definitely in childhood, because that's where my connection with reading began.

Probably because I really love this bookmaking and storytelling world, I'd been thinking for years about the possibility of becoming a literary agent.

Sometimes you never feel meaner than the moment you stop being mean. It's like how turning on a light makes you realize how dark the room had gotten. And the way you usually act, the things you would have normally done, are like these ghosts that everyone can see but pretends not to.

My kids really like food, and they like to cook, so it's a lot of fun to shop with them.

We're allowed as adults to create a life that we like. Kids don't have that freedom.

I try to write about internal experience versus the external self. I like to present ideas, but not package them neatly.

Every published writer suffers through that first draft because most of the time, that's a disappointment.

'Middle school' is used as shorthand for a time when things change. It's a time a lot of kids feel like they don't even have one good friend.

I've met seven homeschooling families through many, many extracurricular activities such as fencing. I don't have a point of view of homeschooling. For some families, homeschooling works.

I would never look a gift horse in the mouth. I've had some lovely homemade earrings and, recently, a wall hanging made in the style of Georges Seurat.

I have nothing like a writing routine. I sometimes have trouble buckling down to write at home.

...if you smile for no reason at all you will actually start to feel happy

Well, it's simple to love someone," she said. "But it's hard to know when you need to say it out loud.

Boredom is what happens to people who have no control over their minds.

But every person has to learn to accept what has happened in the past. Without bitterness. Or there is no point in continuing with life.

Didn't you ever have a father yourself? You don't want him for a reason. You want him because he's your father.' So I figured it's because I never had a father that I don't want one now. A person can't miss something she never had.

Einstein says common sense is just habit of thought. It's how we're used to thinking about things, but a lot of the time it just gets in the way.

I don't know. I just feel stuck, like I'm afraid to take any steps, in case they're the wrong ones.

I still think about the letter you asked me to write. It nags at me, even though you're gone and there's no one to give it to anymore. Sometimes I work on it in my head, trying to map out the story you asked me to tell, about everything that happened this past fall and winter. It's all still there, like a movie I can watch when I want to. Which is never.

If I'm afraid of someone on the street, I'll turn to him (it's always a boy) and say, "Excuse me, do you happen to know what time it is?" This is my way of saying to the person, "I see you as a friend, and there is no need to hurt me or take my stuff. Also, I don't even have a watch and I am probably not worth mugging." So far, it's worked like gangbusters... And I've discovered that most people I'm afraid of are actually very friendly.

If you took every tear cried by everyone on earth on one single day and put them in a container, how big would that container need to be? Could you fill a water tower? Three water towers? It's one of those unknowable things. There has to be an answer, but we'll never know what it is.

I'm an old man, and she's gone now. So don't worry, okay?

Life is really just a bunch of nows, one after the other.

Like when that man was running down Broadway stark naked and we all had to eat in the cafeteria while the police tried to catch him.

Many of the books on my list are, in my opinion, amazing. Some I didn't like. But I give them all five stars, because stars make people - including me -- happy.

Mom. She always says to look at the big picture. How all of the little things don't matter in the long run. . . I know that Mom is right about the big picture. But Dad is right too: Life is really just a bunch of nows, one after the other. The dots matter.

Nice tights," I snorted. Or I tried to snort, anyway. I'm not exactly sure how, though people in books are always doing it.

Pajamas are good for the soul.

She's called the secretary, but as far as I can tell she basically runs the school.

Sometimes you never feel meaner than the moment you stop being mean.

The writing process is not just putting down one page after another-it's a lot of writing and then rewriting, restructuring the story, changing the way things come together.

Trying to forget really doesn't work. In fact, it's pretty much the same as remembering. But I tried to forget anyway, and to ignore the fact that I was remembering you all the time.