Quotes from John Corey Whaley

My family and friends have been monumentally supportive from well before I was a published author.

Watch it, ' her mom snapped. 'Don't start a fight just because it's the easiest thing to do.

In the middle of my fourth year teaching is when I got my book contract - in 2010. I knew the book would come out in May 2011.

I thought, 'What if I were 17, and it was my small town of Springhill, Louisiana? How would I feel if people started flooding in to see some bird?'

I'm beyond thrilled to be working with Faber, whose literary history is second to none. And I'm even more excited to bring my books to a wider audience in the U.K.

I was a terrible reader as a kid. I mean terrible. Super slow and very unfocused. It took me forever to read a book, and I remember being well into high school and still needing my mom to sit down and read aloud to me so I could pass my English tests and such.

I've found that a combination of therapy and medication, along with lifestyle choices like eating better and exercising regularly, helps me cope well with my anxiety.

I was thrilled when this year's National Book Award for Young People's Literature went to Neal Schusterman's 'Challenger Deep.' This brilliant book takes you into the mind of a mentally ill teenager and deserves all the accolades it's received.

I love meeting readers and booksellers and am beyond overwhelmed and gratified at the reception. Each day feels like an adventure.

I regret waiting until my mid-twenties to really start seeing the world. I think I should have taken more risks when I was younger and worried less about being ready to grow up.

If I'm really under pressure to get work done, I can adapt to most situations, but I prefer to be at home, in a comfortable chair, with as few distractions as possible.

I know what it's like to be from an incredibly small town and the oppressiveness of it and the desire to get out. But I didn't realize that readers in Seattle, New York, and San Francisco might not get that so instinctively.

I'm completely obsessed with Andrew Smith's 'Winger.' A great, hilarious, and moving story.

I did some research on cryonics and cryogenics, but I kept it to a minimum because I didn't want the science part of the novel to overshadow the fiction. Being medically accurate wasn't my main goal.

Call it egotistical or narcissist, but I think that's what we all look for in books - the right stories that help us make sense of the world that we, on a very personal level, live in every day.

I'm a huge movie nerd.

Dealing with chronic anxiety has taught me to better understand the nuances of mental illness and the very individual nature of it.

Approaching my second novel was, admittedly, a bit of a struggle. But having an amazing team at Atheneum Books, especially my very patient, brilliant editor Namrata Tripathi, took a stressful situation and turned it into a really great learning experience for me.

I don't think anyone, no matter what, can find perfect happiness until they understand exactly who they are and how every little thing they do can affect the world around them. I think perfect happiness would be a world where everyone is constantly striving to understand everyone else.

I remember, for the first time, sitting down and consuming books in a matter of hours. This was such a new experience for me because reading, up until that point, had been such a struggle and source of stress. I think I just needed to find the right kind of stories with which I could identify.