Veronica Roth

I always appreciate people's opinions, but sometimes I have to take a step back and remember why I'm writing and what I want to do with it. Shutting out the voices is difficult but it's been good for me.

People make me key chains... someone attached a Dauntless symbol to a silver pen. That one is what I use to sign books. I use that a lot. I like to keep them around because they remind me that people are waiting for these books and that they really love them. It gives me motivation in those times when I'm not feeling very motivated.

I know exactly what it's like to stand on top of a tall building or in a high place and look down and go, 'Ohhhh my God.' I try to get into that place every time I write a scene like that. And definitely when I write the action scenes, I get overheated and my heart goes really fast. I get very involved.

You have a good many little gifts and virtues, but there is no need of parading them, for conceit spoils the finest genius. There is not much danger that real talent or goodness will be overlooked long, and the great charm of all power is modesty.

To ask questions can become the laziest and wobbliest occupation of a mind, but when you must yourself answer the problem that you have posed, you will meditate your question with care and frame it with precision.