In the end, you should always do the right thing, even if it's hard. I know that might not help you and that the right thing isn't always so easy to figure out.

By making the place and the people and the feelings real, by the time someone closes the cover of one of my books, they have, hopefully, felt all of the emotions of life.

I have certain moral parameters that I do not cross in writing; I don't write about adultery or kids having premarital sex.

Were all first loves like that? Somehow she doubted it; even now it struck her as being more real than anything she'd ever known. Sometimes it saddened her to think that she'd never experience that kind of feeling again, but then life had a way of stamping out that intensity of passion; she'd learned all too well that love wasn't always enough.

there were moments in life when violence was necessary to save lives

If Words are the Lyrics, and Laughter the Melody, then a Relationship becomes a Symphony.

That'’s a way to increase the realism to the reader, if you want to get technical - you leave it [character] vague and you let the reader fill in the blanks with their imagination.