Life, with its rules, its obligations, and its freedoms, is like a sonnet: You're given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. - Mrs. Whatsit

We tend to defend vigorously things that in our deepest hearts we are not quite certain about. If we are certain of something we know, it doesn't need defending.

It's not my brain that's writing the book, it's these hands of mine.

If I'm not free to fail, I'm not free to take risks and everything in life that's worth doing involves a willingness to take a risk.

If you don't recount your family history, it will be lost. Honor your own stories and tell them too. The tales may not seem very important, but they are what binds families and makes each of us who we are.

A self is not something static, tied up in a pretty parcel and handed to the child, finished and complete. A self is always becoming.

The novelist helps us to see things we might not notice otherwise.