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" I like to have a title before I start writing. "

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" Here is where our real selfhood is rooted, in the divine spark or seed, in the image of God imprinted on the human soul. The True Self is not our creation, but God's. It is the self we are in our depths. It is our capacity for divinity and transcendence. "

" A lot of time you write out of some unconscious place. I try to trust what is coming and where it wants to take me. "

" I think many people need, even require, a narrative version of their life. I seem to be one of them. Writing memoir is, in some ways, a work of wholeness. "

" I grew up in Georgia, in a small town in the southwest corner of Georgia, actually, called Sylvester. "

" The True Self is not our creation, but God's. It is the self we are in our depths. It is our capacity for divinity and transcendence. "

" When I wrote 'The Secret Life of Bees,' I was writing about civil rights. "

" I knew from reading about Sarah Grimke that she'd been given a handmaid to be her personal slave and that her name was Hetty. The only other fact I knew about her was that Sarah taught her to read: They conspired in a very subversive way, by locking the door and screening the keyhole. "

" I've always been a journal-keeper. I've always tried to write about how I'm experiencing life, and my feelings and thoughts. "

" I have a fondness for historical fiction, something wondrous like 'Wolf Hall,' but I'll read most anything as long as the story grabs my mind or my heart, and preferably both. You would be hard pressed, however, to find science fiction on my shelves. "

" I'm always captivated by stories of women who find a way to be daring - misbehaving women. "

" I had begun to write novels because of a fierce, self-serving impulse in my own heart. I had not considered the potential in a book for felt communion, the bright largesse of intimately participating in the lives of other people. "

" Sometimes I was so busy being tuned in to outside ideas, expectations, and demands, I failed to hear the unique music in my soul. I forfeited my ability to listen creatively to my deepest self, to my own God within. "

" I eventually found that the soul is more than an immortal commodity to win and save. It is the repository of the inner divine, the truest part of us. "

" There's a gap somehow between empathy and activism. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke of 'soul force' - something that emanates from a deep truth inside of us and empowers us to act. Once you identify your inner genius, you will be able to take action, whether it's writing a check or digging a well. "

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" I want to believe that while we may sometimes read in the misguided pursuit of preserving our separation, there is a greater impulse inside us that compels us to read in search of the common heart. "

" Every writer has their rituals. For me, it's morning walks along the beach. And then, in my study I have a huge painting of the Black Madonna hung over my desk, and quite a few pictures of Mary around me for inspiration. "

" Writing in the voice of an American slave felt like I was biting off something very large. "

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" It's always been my hope that I would write a story that would inspire and would connect with people in a way that would touch hearts. "

" I vividly remember the summer of 1964 with its voter registration drives, boiling racial tensions, and the erupting awareness of the cruelty of racism. I was never the same after that summer. "

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" I do read a poem almost every morning. Unless I'm really, really late, I have to get my poem in. "

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" I got my Bachelor's degree in nursing and worked nine years - even taught nursing in a college - before I stopped and said to myself, 'This is not who I am. I am not really a nurse inside. I'm a writer.' "