I don't steer clear of genres. I simply haven't steered myself toward some of them.

It means we're looking one way, while following another. We're for one side and also the other. We mean what we say, but our intentions are different.

It is because I had so much joy that I came to have so much hate.

Even if I had expected it, even if I had known what I was going to do with my life, it would have knocked the wind out of me. When something that violent hits you, you can't help but lose your balance and fall. And after you pick yourself up, you realize you can't trust anybody to save you- not your husband, not your mother, not God. So what can you do to stop yourself from tilting and falling all over again?

My favorite anything is always relative to the context of present time, place and mood. When I finish a book and want to immediately find another by the same author and no other, that author is elevated to my favorite.

External success has to do with people who may see me as a model, or an example, or a representative. As much as I may dislike or want to reject that responsibility, this is something that comes with public success. It's important to give others a sense of hope that it is possible and you can come from really different places in the world and find your own place in the world that's unique for yourself.

Over time, passion wanes, differences don't.