When I was a child I used to read books by Gerald Durrell who founded Jersey Zoo. He had a job collecting animals for zoos and for a long time that is what I wanted to do. Later when I was a teenager I had a fantastic English teacher called Mrs. Stafford. Her enthusiasm made me decide to be a writer.

I want to be involved with young people in some way. Teenagers. Because that's the most vulnerable time. I have a fantasy of becoming a teacher one day.

Every teenager deals in his or her own sexuality and has to face it and figure out how it can coincide with the rest of their lives in a healthy manner. And try to navigate it in our modern society which is wrought with stigma and taboo and repression and sort of as a result these inner monsters that some teenagers really struggle with.

American high school students trail teenagers from 14 European and Asian countries in reading math and science. We're even trailing France.

When I was a teenager I was a total romantic escapist. My world was books.

I don't live with people that's why my relationships last. I'm not romantic. Even when I was a teenager if somebody asked if they could hold my hand I'd say - no it's not heavy I can hold it myself thank you'.

Teenage readers also have a different relationship with the authors whose work they value than adult readers do. I loved Toni Morrison but I don't have any desire to follow her on Twitter. I just want to read her books.

People - not just in their teenage years - hold on to this fantasy of love when they're not ready to have a real relationship.

I wrote things for the school's newspaper and - like all teenagers - I dabbled in poetry.

In my late teenage years I developed a real passion for it and wrote a lot of poetry.

While not impossible it is especially challenging for teenage parents to develop bonds with their children. A high percent of them were themselves children of teenage parents and have never experienced appropriate parenting.

Few things are more satisfying than seeing your children have teenagers of their own.

When I get recognized for 'Twilight ' it's usually a teenage girl and they're usually really loud. So it certainly feels like I get recognized the most from that but it could just be because of the nature of how vocal those fans are.

Yeah I've been interested in music since I was a teenager always writing songs.

When I was a teenager I began to settle into school because I'd discovered the extracurricular activities that interested me: music and theater.

At the time I came along Hollywood's idea of teen movies meant there had to be a lot of nudity usually involving boys in pursuit of sex and pretty gross overall. Either that or a horror movie. And the last thing Hollywood wanted in their teen movies was teenagers!

I missed out on everything. Sometimes on the street I see teenagers hanging out and going to the movies going to concerts and I get so jealous.

Hollywood has the idea that movies have to be dumb. But especially movies for or about teenagers have to be really dumb!

Nobody has time to keep trying on a load of things in the morning like a teenager.

I'd never really babysat. I feel like I'm Blair or 'Gossip Girl.' A teenager basically - and now suddenly I'm a mom?

Aretha Franklin was a teenage mom a musician who came from an incredibly Christian background but there was a lot of love which is really inspiring in a feminist way.

We need somebody who's got the heart the empathy to recognize what it's like to be a young teenage mom the empathy to understand what it's like to be poor or African-American or gay or disabled or old - and that's the criterion by which I'll be selecting my judges.

Telling a teenager the facts of life is like giving a fish a bath.

You hope that your teenage self would like and forgive your 50-year-old self.