I think a single woman's biggest problem is coping with the people who are trying to marry her off!

My father died when I was 10; my sister got polio a couple of years later and was paralyzed. So there I was - my sister in a wheel chair, my father gone, and my mother a quiet little mouse. You see, it was the '30s in the South, so my mother was not prepared to cope. So I was scared to death. And being that scared, everything afterward became a struggle not to go down the drain. Struggling became a way of life for me.

I've just been so lucky. I don't know if you're really able to take advantage of your full potential until you're older. There are a few people who are incredibly gifted and make it when they are very young, but I didn't. With women it takes longer. You just keep working and when you finally get it, it feels very, very nice.

you want to write a book for so many reasons ... The main reason ... is because it will make you well-known and beloved and popular and successful and famous and respected. You also write ... to make money, but that motivation is not first on the list.

If you’re not a sex object, you’re in trouble.

There are not that many people who know how to edit. It's a funny tiny little obscure talent but it's very special. You have to have the feeling of popular taste.

some bosses are so greedy (for themselves only) they forget underlings are not thirteenth-century peasants who can be satisfied with a glass of mead and three festivals a year.