Quotes from Angie Thomas

I think that the more of us who take the time to understand how someone else is feeling, the more likely we are to resist alongside them.

I want you to realize your voice matters.

We're seeing young people find their own voices and find their activism.

You just have to find your activism, and don't let anyone tell you what that should look like. If you're doing the work, and you're getting someone to think, you're on the right path.

At 7, I was shooting 3s with so much ease that the guys at the neighborhood park were impressed. Michael Jordan was one of the best humans to walk the earth in my eyes, third only to Jesus and my mother.

So often, blackness is seen in a negative light.

I think, as a writer, sometimes you do worry, 'Am I just writing, or am I putting the burden of African-Americans on my shoulder and carrying it?' But if we just write the stories that we're supposed to write, that's when we have the biggest impact.

Trayvon Martin was 17, Mike Brown was young, Tamir Rice was 12. And so young people are affected by it, possibly the most affected, because they're seeing themselves.

We see organizations that target young black men to give them direction in life, but so often, black girls are missed. I wanted to represent them.

I knew there were calls for diversity in children's lit, but you always wonder as a person of color, how diverse is too diverse?

I'm not sure I could ever write for adults. That's not to throw shade or anything, but I feel like teenagers are much more open-minded and willing to listen sometimes.

I wanted to have a book that showed there's no one way to sound black. I wanted to tell teens that the way you speak is okay; you're good the way you are.

empathy is more powerful than sympathy

I really do hope 'The Hate U Give' provides mirrors for readers who don't often get them in books. I've had so many young black girls tell me just how thrilled they are to see someone who looks like them on the cover. I hope that they see themselves in the pages as well.

The Hogwarts houses are really gangs. They have their own colours, their own hideouts, and they are always riding for each other, like gangs.

Representation makes a difference.

Basketball requires discipline. So does writing. Basketball requires practice. So does writing. Basketball requires resilience. So does writing.

I look at books as being a form of activism. Sometimes they'll show us a side of the world that we might not have known about.

From my anger, frustration, and hurt, I wrote the short story that would later become 'The Hate U Give.'

Bent Literary Agency had a Q&A on Twitter, and I took a chance and asked if the Black Lives Matter movement was an appropriate topic for a YA novel. Brooks Sherman, who is now my agent, responded that he didn't think any topics were inappropriate for YA. I remember being so terrified even just sending the tweet.

YA does a fantastic job of being socially aware and, at the same time, entertaining.

In the YA community, we are fighting for you and alongside you. When you make your voice heard, we're gonna be even louder on your behalf. That's definitely what I would like for teenagers to know. We've got you. We got you. I promise we do.

Initially, I wanted to write middle grade. YA scared me: there's a lot of responsibility in being a YA author. It's so important to give that age range the right books that reflect their world and show them themselves.

When I was in the YA age range myself, I didn't feel like there were a lot of books for me.