I cannot remember a time when I was not in love with them--with the books themselves, cover and binding and the paper they were printed on, with their smell and their weight and with their possession in my arms, captured and carried off to myself.

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.

The first act of insight is throw away the labels.

Gardening is akin to writing stories. No experience could have taught me more about grief or flowers, about achieving survival by going, your fingers in the ground, the limit of physical exhaustion.

The mystery in how little we know of other people is no greater than the mystery of how much, Laurel thought.

The challenge to writers today, I think, is not to disown any part of our heritage. Whatever our theme in writing, it is old and tried. Whatever our place, it has been visited by the stranger, it will never be new again. It is only the vision that can be new; but that is enough.

There is absolutely everything in great fiction but a clear answer.