The hallmark of my books is the relationships that define women's lives.

If I have learned anything in this long life of mine, it is this: in love we find out who we want to be; in war we find out who we are.

That was the thing about best friends. Like sisters and mothers, they could piss you off and make you cry and break your heart, but in the end, when the chips were down, they were there, making you laugh even in your darkest hours.

He was afraid that the secrets she'd kept would always be here, inside him, an ugly malignant thing lodged near enough to his heart to upset its rhythm, and though it could be removed, cut out, there would always be scars; bits and pieces of it would remain in his blood, making it wrong somehow, so that if he accidentally sliced his skin open, his blood would--for one heartbeat--flow as black as India ink before it remembered that it should be red.

Finding your passion isn't just about careers and money. It's about finding your authentic self. The one you've buried beneath other people's needs.

We can't live other people's lives for them. Even if we love them.

It occurred to her suddenly, sharply, that she wanted to be in love... She wanted not to feel so damned alone in the world.