I get up really early, and I go to bed really late. Sometimes I get tired, but it's not important. I have an exciting existence, and there's so much to do.

When I was growing up my mom was home. She wanted to go to work, but she waited. She was educated as a teacher. The minute my youngest sister went to school full-time, from first grade, mom went back to work. But she balanced her life. She chose teaching, which enabled her to leave at the same time we left, and come home pretty much the same time we came home. She knew how to balance.

Study your strengths; then decide how hard you want to work

I am not a rock star or a movie star; I'm a businessperson. I definitely know who my friends are. I'm much more open and trusting than, say, my daughter is.

I really do have rules for running and managing a business that have never been formalized before.

Without an open-minded mind, you can never be a great success.

I live in the same house I’ve lived in for 25 years. I haven’t gone off and bought mansions, you know, even though my subject is living… living in a mansion wouldn’t do for my readers. I have to keep my credibility alive with my readers, so we’re in the same place. I just make that place nicer and nicer. And… and that’s a secret. And people don’t know that. People think, oh, she lives in this fabulous place, it’s the same old place. It started out like a farm, it got to be a farmette, then it got to be an estatelet. I built a wall, it helped a lot. But it’s the same place, the same grounded nature.