140 Quotes by Rebecca Stead

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

Anyone who's familiar with my writing schedule knows that there is always plenty of time between books for me!

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

I try to remember what it was like to be a kid in New York. I lived in different parts of my childhood in Manhattan on the Upper West Side, where 'When You Reach Me' is set, and also in the Midwood section of Brooklyn.

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.

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.

I like the idea of a world, even within a big giant city, where you're not anonymous. You have an identity, and that's an identity that's known just sort of by shopkeepers. I felt that as a kid, and I loved it.

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

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!