“Whenever they tell me children want this sort of book and children need this sort of writing, I am going to smile politely and shut my earlids. I am a writer, not a caterer. There are plenty of caterers. But what children most want and need is what we and they don't know they want and don't think they need, and only writers can offer it to them.”

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

"Oak Lawn Library Vows to Keep Playboy on Shelf" by Jo Napolitano, Chicago Tribune, (June 23, 2005)

Source: The Carrie Diaries

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

"Mr Blair opts out", Guardian, 2 December 1994. Statement on 1 December 1994, defending his decision to send his eldest son Euan to the London Oratory School which had opted out of local education authority control under a policy which the Labour Party opposed.
1990s

On his wanting to become a writer at an early age in " From Poverty to Power: The Inspiring Story of Tomas Rivera http://www.teenink.com/nonfiction/academic/article/778847/From-Poverty-to-Power-The-Inspiring-Story-of-Tomas-Rivera" (TeenInk)

Playboy interview (May 1995)

Source: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath