Happines is like mercury. Hard to hold, and when we drop it, it shatters into a million pieces. Maybe the bravest of all are those who have the courage to reach for it again.

When someone is mean to me, I just make them a victim in my next book.

It's funny how, even long after you've accepted the grief of losing someone you love and truly have gotten on with your life, every once in a while something comes up that plays "gotcha," and for a moment or two the scar tissue separates and the wound is raw again.

The first four months of writing the book, my mental image is scratching with my hands through granite. My other image is pushing a train up the mountain, and it's icy, and I'm in bare feet.

As a writer, you paint strokes and leave suggestions so readers can create their own pictures. That allows you to know someone by a small action and it saves countless pages of explanation.

If you want to be happy for life, love what you do.

Funny, when you finally faced reality, it was amazing how clearly you could see things.