But most important of all, she explained that it was all right to say 'No. I disagree.' that was a gift. I understood it was power. The power to think my own thoughts. The power to believe in myself.

You cannot dispute the ridiculous. You cannot argue reasonably with evil.

He was in love, and people in that condition did stupid, unfathomable things. They were all flawed, every single one.

Those you love will not drown or burn. They will fly away.' ...'Now we both have people we love who are like birds. They have flown far from anything in this world that can hurt them. They're flying away still.

Ironically, now that my children are older and gone quite a bit, I find it harder to work when they're not around. Too much free time!

Emily Brontë's "Wuthering Heights" was extremely important to me.

Do people choose the art that inspires them — do they think it over, decide they might prefer the fabulous to the real? For me, it was those early readings of fairy tales that made me who I was as a reader and, later on, as a storyteller.