After 'The Poisonwood Bible' was published, several people believed that my parents were missionaries, which could not be further from the truth.

Write a nonfiction book, and be prepared for the legion of readers who are going to doubt your fact. But write a novel, and get ready for the world to assume every word is true.

It's frightening when things you love appear suddenly changed from what you have always known.

I know how people are, with their habits of mind. Most will sail through from cradle to grave with a conscience clean as snow...I know people. Most have no earthly notion of the price of a snow-white conscience.

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!

God, why does a mortal man have children? It is senseless to love anything this much.

Maybe life doesn't get any better than this, or any worse, and what we get is just what we're willing to find: small wonders, where they grow.