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" I continue to shun, in a very curmudgeonly fashion, things like Twitter and Facebook. "

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" I was ridiculed in public school for being smart. A teacher's pet. "

" I write because I'm in love with language; because I like working for myself, inside my head; and because it's the only way I know to make a stab at answering the never-ending questions of the heart that arise simply from the everyday living of our lives. "

" Sometimes the writing leads to the revelations, not the other way around. "

" Though I'm a New Englander, I'm very indoorsy once the mercury drops. "

" I have struggled for decades now with the fear of and resistance to change - mostly in the realms of technology, transportation, and the ways people choose to communicate. If I had a theme song, it would be that lovely song 'I'm Old-Fashioned,' as sung by Ella Fitzgerald. "

" The books I read, if they intrude on my writing, do so as weather will pass through and touch a landscape - affecting it, yes, but only now and then leaving a permanent mark. "

" To me, stretching the capabilities of my imagination is a crucial aspect of writing fiction; you could think of it as a mental form of athleticism. "

" A fine memoir is to a fine novel as a well-wrought blanket is to a fancifully embroidered patchwork quilt. The memoir, a logical creation, dissects and dignifies reality. Fiction, wholly extravagant, magnifies it and gives it moral shape. Fiction has no practical purpose. Fiction, after all, is art. "

" As a writer of fiction, I spend my days inventing real lives for make-believe people; what I create can only seem real. "

" I grew up in a home where animals were ever-present and often dominated our lives. There were always horses, dogs, and cats, as well as a revolving infirmary of injured wildlife being nursed by my sister the aspiring vet. "

" In every novel, I write about something - a place, an experience, an emotion - with which I'm intimately familiar, but it's also crucial to me that I take on challenges. If write only inside my comfort zone, I'll suffocate. "

" That's why you can't be a true Yankee without winter: because all the best pleasures are earned - the fire, the fried oysters; the warmer seasons, too. Who knows the real worth of summer at the beach without a good taste of the seaside in winter? "

" Nothing teaches great writing like the very best books do. Yet, good teachers often help students cross that bridge, and I have to say that I had a few extraordinary English teachers in high school whom I still credit for their guidance. "

" A good novel is an out-of-self experience. It lifts you off the ground so that you have the sensation of flying. It says, 'Look at the world around you; learn from the people in these pages, neither quite me nor quite you, how life is lived in so many different ways.' "

" Visual art is a foreign language I'm fluent at, but my native language is language. "

" My own life is wonderful, but if I had to live the life of someone else, I'd gladly choose that of Julia Child or Dr. Seuss: two outrageously original people, each of whom fashioned an idiosyncratic wisdom, passion for life, and sense of humor into an art form that anyone and everyone could savor. "

" I am not opposed to e-readers. Any technology that encourages the reading of literature is a good thing. "

" My love of books - not just of their tactile pleasures but of their astonishing variety - was born in a book-filled house; my father is a scholar. "

" I wonder if it's in the nature of fiction writers to never quite see their own lives as 'real,' since we are always making stuff up! "

" Over time, it's occurred to me that my protagonists all originate in some aspect of myself that I find myself questioning or feeling uncomfortable about. "

" In my head, at least, the business of spinning stories has no closing time. Twists in my characters' lives, glimpses of their secrets, obstacles to their dreams... all arrive unbidden when I'm getting cash at the ATM, walking my son to camp, singing a hymn at a wedding. "

" I love it when I start a book that is so good that all I want to do is get back to my own writing, in a competitive way. "

" Somewhat sadly, the survival of many bookstores now depends on selling merchandise other than books. "

" I see life as increasingly complex, vivid, colorful, crazy, chaotic. That's the world I write about... the world I live in. "

" Though I didn't quite plan it that way, I had my two sons at just about the same ages my mother saw me and my sister off to college, and my first novel was published when I was 46. This 'tardiness' isn't something I'm proud of, but I'm happy to be an inspiration to others who arrive at these milestones later than most of us do. "

" The old adage is, 'Write what you know.' But if you only do that, your work becomes claustrophobic. I say, 'Write what you want to know.' "

" I read reviews and consider myself pretty 'plugged in' to the literary cosmos, yet one of the things I love best about book-touring is the opportunity to compare notes with favorite booksellers around the country. I always come home with books by authors I'd never heard of - or books I've read about but didn't realize I might love. "

" I'm not a believer that you have to write every day. If I felt industrious, I'd spend ten hours a week writing. The writing is going on all the time in my head; the trick is to capture it. Showers are great. Traffic jams are great. "

" I love to eat, I love to feed people, and I'm a great cook. I joked with my friends that I wanted to write a book where desserts had to be extensively researched, since I have a terrible sweet tooth. My particular downfall is cake. "

" I talked late, swam late, did not learn to ride a bike until college - and might never have walked or learned to drive a car if my parents hadn't overruled my lack of motivation and virtually forced me to embrace both forms of transportation. I suspect I was happy to sit in a corner with a book. "