Open your eyes and see what you can with them before they close forever.

My sister-in-law is a painter, and I'll say, how long did it take you to paint that painting. She'll say, It took me maybe three days, but it took me all my life to get the skills to paint that painting.

Anyone who has spent a few nights in a tent during a storm can tell you: The world doesn't care all that much if you live or die.

In our memories the stories of our lives defy chronology, resist transcription: past ambushes present, and future hurries into history.

It took me about three years to write About Grace. I wasn't teaching two of those years, so I was working eight-hour days, five days a week. And it would include research and reading - it wasn't just a blank page, laying down words.

For me, writing historical fiction is all about finding a balance between reading, traveling, looking, imagining, and dreaming.

To say a person is a happy person or an unhappy person is ridiculous. We are a thousand different kinds of people every hour.