I always try to write about believable people.

.. that terrible feeling that you're not good enough to be loved by the people you love most, and eventually by anyone else.

When you can bring yourself to write about it one day, you will find it all less painful. It is a catharsis of sorts, but the process can be brutal. Don’t do it until you’re ready.

It's been very hard, after being mostly a mom, to develop an adult life of my own. And not being married anymore, I have to come up with challenges.

Somehow you drift along on the river, and one day you wake up and you’re someplace you don’t want to be, with someone you realize you don’t know.

It's difficult to talk to people... I walk into a room and I'm Danielle Steel, and whatever I say is going to be taken apart.

So often people tell me: you got me through this, you've really helped me. And I never realized that part of what I do is that I give people hope.