All there is to do, right at this very moment, is to breathe in, breathe out, and kiss the joy as it flies.

Part of my spiritual work is learning to live with the knowledge that we can't protect our loved ones from pain and heartache.

It's not gender-specific, but I do think it's women who tend to start having that sort of little whispering voice of "I want more here" and "I want more for my family."

Everything I know about life I learned from the daily practice of sitting down to write.

There is no end to the promotion. There is no end to the possibilities. You can continue to promote a book for years, literally.

Courage is more important than confidence

When I was writing my first novel, I smoked cigarettes. And when I think about what it was like to smoke, I remember exactly the feeling of sitting in front of my big old computer in that little room where I wrote my first novel.