She knows who she is. She just forgot for a little while.

I used to write when I was in the mood or felt inspired. Anymore, I write whether I feel inspired or not. It's a discipline. So that's definitely different. It's part of maturing as a person and as a professional.

I love to give to charity, but I don't want to be charity. This is why I have so much trouble with grace.

And so I have come to understand that strength, inner strength, comes from receiving love as much as it comes from giving it.

I'm amazed at how much my writing is improved when I step away from the computer, even in small amounts. If I'm stuck, I vacuum the living room or walk the dog. I'm amazed at what comes out of that... We have to realize that part of the writing life where we're sitting down at the computer is harvesting the crops, but you have to have planted them and watered them and created fertile soil - and that's a life.

If honesty is the key to intimacy, it means we don't have to be perfect and we don't have to pretend to be perfect.

The ambitions we have will become the stories we live.