Why are we reading a Shakespeare play or 'Huckleberry Finn?' Well, because these works are great, but they also tell us something about the times in which they were created. Unfortunately, previous eras and dead authors often used language or accepted as normal sentiments that we now find unacceptable.

I suspected that there were things he knew that I had been waiting all my life to learn.

I was asked by an editor to consider writing something about an American inventor. I asked him if he knew who invented the computer. He said he didn't. In that case, I told him, I should write a book about John Vincent Atanasoff.

I was an only child. I've known only children. From this experience, I do believe that the children should outnumber the parents.

Eavesdrop and write it down from memory - gives you a stronger sense of how people talk and what their concerns are. I love to eavesdrop!

There weren't too many books by women that were taught in school, so I read those on my own, and the books I read were as accessible as the ones we were reading in school.

A horse herd was, in its very essence, the manifestation of the expression 'It's always something.