Sara Zarr

“My first published book, 'Story of a Girl', was the fourth book I wrote.”

“The characters are whole, real people to me that I'm getting to know, and since real people are all flawed, so are my characters, I hope.”

“I do have a little bit more confidence in - or at least familiarity with - my process. For example, when it feels like it's going badly or that I'm lost, I know I'll eventually find my way because I've been through it before. But writing itself is still hard.”

“And I don't just mean that they change you. A lot of people can change you—the first kid who called you a name, the first teacher who said you were smart, the first person who crowned you best friend. It's the change you remember, the firsts and what they meant, not really the people.”

“I don't want to pretend like I'm some intellectual person who understands Flannery O'Connor.”

“When the reader and one narrator know something the other narrator does not, the opportunities for suspense and plot development and the shifting of reader sympathies get really interesting.”

“When a young reader tells you that they'd never finished a book outside of school until they read yours, or that they really needed to hear something that one of your characters says or thinks... that's just rewarding and humbling.”

“We write in ways that, we generally hope, reflect real life, or at least look familiar to humans. And in life, recurring themes are a recurring theme. We never quite conquer a pet vice or a relationship pattern or a communication habit. We're haunted by our particular demons.”

“Making lists of favorite things is, for me, a task ridden with anxiety. What if I've accidentally excluded something I love? What if I discover something new tomorrow that I love even more?”

“I remember being in high school and listening to Vivaldi's 'Winter' and being so overwhelmed with emotion.”

“Because love, love is never finished. It circles and circles, the memories out of order and not always complete.”

“I wouldn't say I'm stuck in my adolescence, but I think, like a lot of people, I carry my teen years with me. I feel really in touch with those feelings, and how intense and complicated life seems in those years.”

“Family or love or romance, whatever it is, is not restricted to perfect people. If it were, it wouldn't exist. All of that comes out in my work in some way.”

“It's like a Venn diagram of tragedy.”

“I have no desire to go back to San Francisco.”

“I don't like to do too much psychological research because it might turn a character into a patchwork.”

“When the remembering was done, the forgetting could begin.”

“My first job is to write the characters as full and authentic people as well as I can.”

“My books have been translated into various languages and sold in other countries, but I never have any contact with the foreign publishers and am so disconnected from that process that it seems almost imaginary. With 'How to Save a Life', I worked closely with Usborne editors and have been involved in the publicity.”

“That's how you know you really trust someone, I think; when you don't have to talk all the time to make sure they still like you or prove that you have interesting stuff to say.”