Aid workers, when handing out food to starving people, quickly learn that the people fighting for it at the front are the people who need it least. It's the people sitting quietly at the back, too weak to fight, who need it the most. And so too with tragedy.

Life is change. If you aren't growing and evolving, you're standing still, and the rest of the world is surging ahead.

He tried to let her know it would be all right. Eventually. Life wouldn't always be this painful. The world wouldn't always be this brutal. Give it time, little one. Give it another chance. Come back.

A good novel is a good novel, pointe finale. And I think what I'm writing is exactly that.

A good journalist, as you know, is a great listener. And so's a good writer. And I got to listen to people for almost 20 years. That serves me well, I hope, when I try to understand how a character might be feeling, or how they might react.

Where there is love there is courage, where there is courage there is peace, where there is peace there is God. And when you have God, you have everything.

What are you afraid of? I'm afraid of not recognizing Paradise.