K. A. Applegate

“I think we have a real obligation when we do have animals in captivity to understand their needs and to care for them as well as we can.”

“I think having imaginary friends is an amazing coping mechanism. It's pretty wonderful, and it makes a lot of sense to me.”

“One of the reasons I love writing for middle graders, besides their voracious appetite for books, is their deep concern for fairness and morality.”

“What do we lose without wild animal acts at the circus? Absolutely nothing, except the opportunity to be haunted and heartbroken.”

“I was writing at a really young age, but it took me a long time to be brave enough to become a published writer, or to try to become a published writer. It's a very public way to fail. And I was kind of scared, so I started out as a ghost writer, and I wrote for other series, like Disney 'Aladdin' and 'Sweet Valley' and books like that.”

“I think most writers will say that at the start of each book they think, 'I'm not sure I can do this.' But eventually, you reach a magical point where the story suddenly becomes real to you, and you become totally invested in it.”

“I think I was 9, and my mom ordered them for me from a catalogue. They bred like crazy, and I was selling gerbils all around Michigan. They wrote a story about me in the local newspaper.”

“I don't hate anybody," Tobias said calmly. "It's strange, but right now, I don't even hate the Yeerks. It's like, they're trying to survive. And we're trying to survive. I'm not really sure why it has to be an either-or thing.”

“I think younger readers connect so readily to animal characters because they share a certain vulnerability, particularly when it comes to adult humans, who can be a rather unpredictable lot.”

“Stan is a rescue Chihuahua mix. He was the role model for Bob, the dog in 'Ivan.' The drawings in the book look precisely like Stan.”

“Hunger and homelessness aren't things we always want to talk about.”

“Gorillas may seem terrifying because of their bodies, but they are really magnificent and very gentle.”

“When I was a child, going to a circus with wild animal acts was a rite of passage. These days, it's an act of complicit cruelty.”

“As a species, we can at times be dimwitted and cruel. But we're also capable of learning.”

“I live in a high-rise apartment building, so I just have two cats. They're both pound kitties. One of them, Dick, is an evil, foot-biting cat. When I write a tiger morph, I'm always imagining Dick.”

“I grew up in an affluent suburban world and never worried about money until I'd grown up and found wonderfully original ways to screw up my life.”

“One of my first paid gigs was writing psychology quizzes for 'YM,' a monthly teen magazine like 'Seventeen.'”

“I hope kids feel gratitude for what they do have.”

“I think all writers write from the time they're really young, and you just start asking the question, 'What if?'”

“I was sure I wanted to grow up to be either a veterinarian or a writer. In fact, I worked for a vet during high school, doing everything from cleaning cages to assisting in surgery.”