I had read a lot of books on World War II, but I didn't know that downed airmen had hiked over the frozen peaks of the Pyrenees Mountains in shoes that didn't fit, in clothes that weren't warm enough, with German and Spanish patrols searching for them.

I know that sounds ineffective and daunting, but it [throw hundreds of pages away] is actually my favorite part of the writing process.

I have to admit that WWII France was not at all on my radar for Kristin Hannah.

I do not often follow my characters off on tangents or change my story on a whim. I have an outline which I follow quite sternly...for a good long while. Then it turns out in some way to be insurmountably wrong and I am forced to re-think every component. Usually at this point I throw hundreds of pages away.

Trying to justify a world we don't hold all the answers to is what bedevils the best of us. Sometimes it's better just to accept that things are as we see them.

I am one of those authors who believes (perhaps foolishly) that she is in complete control of the story.

I love the idea of ordinary women making extraordinary sacrifices.