Andrew Clements

There's so much made of the exceptional and the celebrity, the famous, and the wannabees.

I get wonderful letters from kids and teachers. I must have the best readers in the world.

Part of being a fiction writer is being able to imagine how someone else is thinking and feeling. I think I've always been good at that.

It's good to like yourself, and that only comes from hard work, from doing. But vanity is dangerous; it can trip you badly.

Another thing that freaks me out is time. Time is like a book. You have a beginning, a middle and an end. It's just a cycle.

If you compare NASA's annual budget to explore the heavens, that one year budget would fund NOAA's budget to explore the oceans for 1,600 years.