There are only two ways we can be beaten: we die or we give up. And we're not giving up.

"Literature" is written material that, 100 years after the death of the author, is forced upon high school students.

Every novel begins with the speculative question, What if "X" happened? That's how you start.

Success is a finished book, a stack of pages each of which is filled with words. If you reach that point, you have won a victory over yourself no less impressive than sailing single-handed around the world.

The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.

The U.S. Military is us. There is no truer representation of a country than the people that it sends into the field to fight for it. The people who wear our uniform and carry our rifles into combat are our kids, and our job is to support them, because they're protecting us.

She didn't strike me as a "crossword in ink" kind of girl