Like friendship, hatred needed more than physical intimacy; it wanted creativity and hard work to sustain itself

Some literature is knowledge, some is just data. But if I can get a "happy" ending - which is when for the characters I'm writing about, something happens that they move from wherever they are in the beginning to knowledge or wisdom, they know something they never would have acknowledged or realized if it hadn't been for my book - that for me is what literature does.

My first-born. All I can remember of her is how she loved the burned bottom of bread. Can you beat that? Eight children and that's all I remember.

Somebody has to take responsibility for being a leader.

There is no civilization that did not begin with art, Whether it was drawing a line in the sand, painting a cave or dancing.

Grown don't mean nothing to a mother. A child is a child. They get bigger, older, but grown? What's that supposed to mean? In my heart it don't mean a thing.

A friend gathers all the pieces and gives them back in the right order.