It occurs to her that there is one thing about people you can never understand well enough: how entirely inside themselves they are.

If you can't dress expensive, dress memorable.

Plot comes first. The plot is the archictecture of your novel. You wouldn't build a house without a plan. If I wrote without a plot, it would just be a pile of bricks. Characters are your servants. They must serve your plot.

Let me claim that Africa and I kept company for a while and then parted ways as if we were both party to relations with a failed outcome. Or say I was afflicted with Africa like a bout of a rare disease from which I have not managed a full recovery.

He was my father. I own half his genes, and all of his history. Believe this: the mistakes are part of the story. I am born of a man who believed he could tell nothing but the truth, while he set down for all time the Poisonwood Bible.

If you want sweet dreams, you've got to live a sweet life.

there are people who read my work and accuse me of being political! As far as I'm concerned that's like accusing a dog of having a bark!