Story writers say that love is concerned only with young people, and the excitement and glamour of romance end at the altar. How blind they are. The best romance is inside marriage; the finest love stories come after the wedding, not before.

One should not become an artist because he can, but because he must. It is only for those who would be miserable without it.

Nature always resists the artist at the beginning.

I spend several years trying to get inside the brain and heart of my subjects, listening to the interior monologues in their letters, and when I have to bridge the chasms between the factual evidence, I try to make an intuitive leap through the eyes and motivation of the person I'm writing about.

When I have trouble writing, I step outside my studio into the garden and pull weeds until my mind clears--I find weeding to be the best therapy there is for writer's block.

Misery is the only thing in the world that has no end or edge.

You cannot be the good all the time — sometimes it is necessary to get angry. [Vincent Van Gogh]