Once I have the idea for a story. I start collecting all kinds of helpful information and storing it in three-ring notebooks. For example, I may see a picture of a man in a magazine and say, 'That's exactly what the father in my book looks like!'...I save everything that will help--maps, articles, hand-jotted notes, bits of dialogue from conversations that I overhear.

Why is life so complicated....?' I asked. 'To keep us from being bored,' he said.

You don't have to be part of a couple to be happy, you know.

Happiness is wanting what you have.

People can't help the way they feel, only what they do about it. They can no longer not be attracted to someone other than their spouse than they can say they are not hungry or not thirsty or not frightened or embarrassed. It's when you act on that attraction when you know it would be bad for your marriage that is the problem. In a good marriage, the couple are each as committed to the marriage as they are to each other.

The Three Cs, I told myself. When you're not Comfortable with it, it's not a Compliment, it's Creepy.

I can never understand why people who have not seen me for a while ask if I am still writing. They might as well ask me if I am still breathing.