…and I’m thinking how nothing is as simple as you guess-not right or wrong, not Judd Travers, not even me or this dog I got here. But the good part is I saved Shiloh and opened my eyes some. Now that ain’t bad for eleven.

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 first draft is just a skeleton-just bare bones. It's like the very first rehearsal of a play, where the director moves the actors around mechanically to get a feel of the action.

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.

When you’ve found the right one - when you see him, when you’re with him - you’ll feel like you’re coming home.

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

I also know that you can lie not only by what you say but what you don't say.