"After my parents divorced, my dad bought me 10 random records for Christmas one year. This was the one I connected with the most. Some of the songs are quite hard-hitting – my favourite, All the Girls Love Alice, has this killer guitar riff and a dark subject matter, about a teenage lesbian who gets murdered. I'm just a little kid, eight or nine at the time, and I'm really grooving on the music but also trying to absorb some of the lyrics. I barely even know what sex is at the time and here's this weird lesbian murder intrigue. I was like, what the fuck's going on man? I was totally in. Elton John is more than just Candle in the Wind."

"I found this really unnerving when I first read it at age eight. There’s a lot of talk lately about “kids’ books for adults.” But this is an adult book for kids—a realistic, complex, and not at all dumbed down look at a girl who wants more than anything else to be a writer. When I grew up and learned that Fitzhugh was a lesbian, that explained a bit more about why Harriet resonated so much for me."