The only reason we make good role models is because you guys look up to athletes and we can influence you in positive ways. But the real role models should be your parents and teachers!

Facing the press is not easy but because you have to go you have to try to take a lot of positive things for yourself from these face-to-face meetings.

I don't personally try to balance my work because I operate under the assumption that anyone reading or watching my stuff isn't having a particularly balanced day anyway. But negative attitudes just amuse me more than positive ones.

Positive healthy loving relationships in your twenties... I don't know if anyone would disagree with it: I think they're the exception not the norm. People are either playing house really aggressively because they're scared of what an uncertain time it is or they're avoiding commitment altogether.

Well you know a lot of people look at the negative things the things that they did wrong and - which I do. But I like to stress on the things I did right because there are certain things that I like to look at from a positive standpoint that are just positive reinforcement.

I never appreciated 'positive heroes' in literature. They are almost always cliches copies of copies until the model is exhausted. I prefer perplexity doubt uncertainty not just because it provides a more 'productive' literary raw material but because that is the way we humans really are.

If you are given a chance to be a role model I think you should always take it because you can influence a person's life in a positive light and that's what I want to do. That's what it's all about.

I am involved with politics today because of the inspiration I received from Ronald Reagan.

Living in Washington you can't take politics too seriously. I draw the line at honesty. I have no time for political hacks who say things they don't believe because they get paid to.

We don't tend to write about disease in fiction - not just teen novels but all American novels - because it doesn't fit in with our idea of the heroic romantic epic. There is room only for sacrifice heroism war politics and family struggle.