Quotes from Vanessa Diffenbaugh

I have spent a lot of time with foster children over the years - kids for whom I have not necessarily acted as a foster parent.

I was a screenwriting and studio art major in college, so even though I don't have any training as a floral designer, I have a very particular visual aesthetic.

My husband and I vowed that after we married and settled down, we would become foster parents - a vow we kept and one that has enriched our lives greatly.

Though politics is by nature divisive, surely we all can agree that foster children need stability, safety, education, opportunity - and love.

There's still something so pure and heartfelt and emotional and genuine about a bouquet of flowers that, even with all the advances of technology and the millions of ways we have to communicate with each other, flowers are still relevant in my opinion.

There aren't always, especially in low-income communities, the arts and the dance and the drama and the things that can really show a kid, 'Look, even if I'm three years behind in math, there's something I'm good at that can help me be successful in life.'

I'm missing work. We didn't have enough money for preschool. I had a panic attack. I couldn't do it. I became one of those horrible foster parents who give the kids back.

You have to really prove yourself to young people, and if your answer is clear and consistent and loving - even if it's angry and disappointed - what's important is that you're being real and honest and not going anywhere.

I love Toni Morrison and Jeanette Winterson. 'The Passion' is my favourite book.

My last book, 'The Language of Flowers,' I wrote completely on naptime, when my little kids were asleep.

Writing has always been an interest of mine, and 'The Language of Flowers' combined my experience with foster care with something I've always wanted to do.

We are more and more into technology. Everything is texting, and everything is instant. Flowers are completely impractical as a method of communication when you could just send a text.

We were pressured to accept kids we were not qualified to handle. And we do that to people all the time, which is why we don't have enough foster parents.

I've worked with homeless kids, kids in foster care, and I've never met a kid who couldn't be reached.

I founded Camellia Network with my dear friend Isis Dallis Keigwin. The mission of our organization is to create a national network that connects every youth aging out of foster care to the critical resources, opportunities, and support they need to thrive in adulthood.

I wanted to write with emotional honesty and tell a story people could connect with. And I wanted people to know how the foster system in America fails children; and how, at 18, they fall through the cracks. Then we can all work together and give support.

We can become anyone we want to become. It takes focusing on the aspect of ourselves we want to change and reflecting on the beliefs that cause us to act in ways that are counter to the change we seek.

I'm very interested in getting inside the heads of people society discards, people on the fringe, especially immigrant kids. We dismiss them without getting into details of who they are.

I think that the hardest thing about working with young people in foster care who've been through this kind of neglect and abuse is really to convince them that they are worthy of being loved. And I think because often they don't feel worthy of it, that's why they push people away.

Perhaps the unattached, the unwanted, the unloved, could grow to give love as lushly as anyone else.

The Victorian language of flowers began with the publication of 'Le Language des Fleurs,' written by Charlotte de Latour and printed in Paris in 1819. To create the book - which was a list of flowers and their meanings - de Latour gathered references to flower symbolism throughout poetry, ancient mythology, and even medicine.

I am not only the person who wrote and sold a novel while raising a houseful of biological and foster children; I am also the person who wrote a horrific young adult novel that never sold and gave up on a foster child I couldn't handle - an experience that still haunts me.

My husband and I have been involved with foster youth since our early 20s. Right out of college and not yet married, we spent weekends mentoring a family of young girls.

I traveled a full two years with 'Language of Flowers.'