“I had this almost secret life of going to 'Star Wars' conventions beca...” — Alexandra Bracken Quote

“I had this almost secret life of going to 'Star Wars' conventions because,' when I was younger, Star Wars' had phased into the uncool part of its life and had yet to become cool again for everybody else.”

“We are all protective over the things we love.”

“Familial betrayal is, to me, the most heartbreaking kind - because if you can't trust your family to love you and protect you, who can you really trust?”

“I didn't get to experience proper autumn until I was eighteen and heading off to college on the East Coast!”

“Much like dystopian and post-apocalyptic books are a way to explore the worst-case scenarios lurking around the corner, fantasy can serve as a wonderful tool for showing kids that they have an inherent power in them to create change, both in themselves and in their community.”

“When I was trying to figure out how the government might go about creating the camps in 'The Darkest Minds,' I researched the Japanese internment camps here in the United States, specifically propaganda the government used, and how they capitalized on people's fears.”

“No one will be hurt if I don't come to conventions.”

“I was a superhero fan in the '90s, so I'm definitely familiar with John Romita, Jr. In fact, when I was in high school, I would go to local conventions and line up and get his signature.”

“The personal things should be left out of, in my opinion, out of platforms and conventions.”

“At 18, I got a publishing deal, so I was like, 'I can do this for real and not go to college.' When I was a teenager, my parents dragged me to a lot of songwriting conventions.”

“There is a kind of courtesy in skepticism. It would be an offense against polite conventions to press our doubts too far.”

“I like to play with transgression and upending conventions, and I like the idea of rooting genre films in character.”