A sheltered life can be a daring life as well. For all serious daring starts from within.

How can you go out on a limb if you do not know your own tree? No art ever came out of not risking your neck. And risk--experiment--is a considerable part of the joy of doing.

Through travel I first became aware of the outside world; it was through travel that I found my own introspective way into becoming a part of it.

Ah, I'm a woman that's been clear around the world in my rocking chair, and I tell you we all get surprises now and then.

Learning stamps you with its moments. Childhood's learning is made up of moments. It isn't steady. It's a pulse.

Writing fiction has developed in me an abiding respect for the unknown in a human lifetime and a sense of where to look for the threads, how to follow, how to connect, find in the thick of the tangle what clear line persists.

Every story teaches you how to write that story but not the next story.