Quotes from Lisa Graff

I desperately want to visit the Galapagos and meet some giant tortoises.

I have always had a ridiculous fear that I will walk into the bathroom one morning and find a python in my toilet.

When you do choose to speak, " she told me, "speak truths.

Kids are always told that they can be anything that they want. But what if you want to be a ballerina, and you're terrible at ballet? Or what if you're gifted at ballet, but you don't like doing it?

Being a writer can be a very lonely profession, but having a network of people who can sympathize with everything you're going through - from contract issues to the terror of changing your novel from past- to present-tense - is an invaluable asset.

Kids know when you're pulling a fast one, storywise, and I think that even when they're being entertained, children want to hear the truth, just like adults do.

One of the things I like to do during an 'overhaul' revision is bust out my highlighters and colored pens. Tools like these make me feel like a real writer.

The Longstockings are eight children's and young adult writers. We all came out of the New School MFA program, and we meet regularly to critique each other's work.

My love of baking might have originated with my grandmother. She had a lemon tree growing in her backyard, and one of my favorite memories is of picking lemons together and then baking lemon bars.

I was the typical little sister who wanted to be just like her older brother. When I was growing up, my brother wrote phenomenal stories, so I wanted to write them, too.

I've been a children's book editor, a nanny, a camp counselor, a barista, a research lab assistant, and a movie theater ticket-taker.

When I was in fourth grade, I had a lot of upheaval in my life. Both of my parents remarried, and we all got new houses. That was also the year my older brother got very sick.

I'd like to have a perfect sense of direction. I could get lost with a GPS strapped to my arm.

Everyone deserves a sad day once in a while," Calista told me. "Sometimes things are too big for cheering up. Sometimes the best way to make things better is just to let yourself be sad for a little bit.

It's the way we deal with what Fate hands us that defines who we are.

You should do something because you love it, not just because you're good at it.

Life is the grandest adventure one can go on, isn't it?' said the giant kindly (he seemed to be a very friendly giant). 'What else could a person ask for than just to be alive?' Will knew exactly what else a person could ask for. 'Monsters,' he said. 'And cake.

Find something you'd want to keep doing forever," she said, "even if you stink at it. And then if you're lucky, with lots of practice, then one day you won't stink so much.

Some people aren't good at anything. Some people just really like donuts.

Her favorite animal was sea lions. Mine was giraffes. Her favorite movie was Casablanca, which she said was old and black-and-white and very romantic. She tried to tell me what it was about, but it all sounded about as much fun as eating burned bread crusts.

And you couldn't be anywhere at all without having been almost there for a while.

You couldn't get where you were going without knowing where you'd been. And you couldn't be anywhere at all without having been almost there for a while.

There's no controlling what Fate hands you...and in my experience, it rarely seem to give you exactly what you need at the exact moment you need it. ...Just remember this, it's the way we deal with what Fate hands us that defines who we are

Memory is a curious thing. Some details stick in our minds like peanut butter on crackers, and refuse to budge, as much as we might wish they would. Other memories - heavy ones sometimes, ones that seem unbudgeable - can be plucked right out when we least expect it. Lost memories leave remnants, of course, flavors that linger in the mind, but it's difficult to taste things when you don't know they're there