Matt de la Pena

I've always wanted to write about the other side of the tracks, the have-nots, maybe because that's who I was.

I used to be so angry about the kids that had stuff. Like the kids that had cars, the kids that had money to go get lunch every day off campus. I used to feel so slighted.

I'm ashamed to admit this, but I didn't read a novel all the way through until after high school. Blasphemy, I know. I'm an author now. Books and words are my world.

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.

Exeter was, I suspect, more crucial in my life than in the lives of most members of my class, and conceivably, than in the lives of almost anyone else who ever attended the school.

I really think the most important thing I do is to protect the dignity and the integrity of the Office of the Surgeon General.