I certainly understand very much what it's (like when) an expense comes up and you're trying to figure out how to pay for it.

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

When a scientist's son or daughter becomes a scientist they'll say "Wonderful! Wonderful!" So, why, in the name of God, would a mother be jealous to see her daughter become a successful writer?

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.

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.

The truth is I hate cocktail parties when the only person I know is my supposed date, and he abandons me the minute we come in the door.

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.