Barbara Delinsky

Parents do bear some of the responsibility if they don't talk to their kids, are never around, even deny their kids the love that young girls often crave when they decide to have a baby.

In plotting a book, my goal is to raise the stakes for the characters and, in so doing, keep the reader mesmerized.

I'm not convinced that abstinence-only education works.

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.

When I do my makeup, it kind of helps me get into the character that I'm trying to portray.

I wanted to be a teacher, but I was a lousy student, one of the slowest readers. It was a tremendous struggle. But I'm lucky I had some teachers who saw something in me.