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" I love to listen to people talk, especially when they're being really honest and they're not trying to sound any particular way. "

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" It usually takes about a year to write each book. I don't plan it that way. I don't set deadlines. If a book wants to take longer, it can. "

" Writing was always a release for me, a great joy. It wasn't work. "

" If there were a category in the Olympics for laundry, my mother would have been a gold-medal winner. "

" The process is different for every book, but there are similarities. I always draw from the inside out. I don't plot them ahead of time, and I'm always surprised by things that happen in my books. "

" In this wide world, I don't think that there's just one person for any of us. I think we look until we find one that feels right, and oftentimes, it works out just fine. "

" Never try to copy other writers, and never try to have a formula. It has to come from your heart and soul. "

" Everybody knows the mother-daughter relationship is one of the most complex there is. "

" I suppose writing nonfiction did prepare me for writing fiction. Whenever you write anything, you're honing your skills for writing anything else. "

" I'm nuts about the South - the people, the language, the food, the land, the stories and writers that come from there - but it's hard to know whether I'll use it as a location again. "

" You should not pay too much attention to what anyone tells you, including me. It's very, very important to follow your own map. "

" When I wrote 'Home Safe,' I wanted to look at a number of things: the mystery and joy and pain of creativity. What happens when a vital safety net is suddenly removed. The difficulty some people have in growing up. The way a deep love can be as crippling as it is satisfying. But mostly, I wanted to look at the mother-daughter relationship. "

" Really, my sacred place is my study where there are books that I love and things that people have given me. "

" Writers have a reputation for being distracted. That's because writers are distracted. They are always tuned into that other voice, the one in their head that rarely turns off. "

" Not being as self-contained as men, we need to share things: It's almost as though you only know what you feel about things after you share them with a woman. "

" I think Chicago is the best city in the country, hands down, but I don't like the winter there anymore. "

" Elvis is symbolic of a lot of things, dreams coming true being one of them. "

" Ideas come from life: what happens in mine, what I see happening in others', mixed with a great deal of imagination. I might see a person in a grocery store and build a whole character and life out of what's in her basket. "

" With 'Durable Goods,' I meant only to write about being an army brat. What emerged was a story about compassion - the need for it, the expression of it. "

" My mom used to keep all her Christmas cards in a basket bedecked with red ribbon, and I loved to look at them all and read all the letters. "

" No matter what kind of writing you do, it's always the details that make the story. "

" It is a happy day when I am asked to publicly recommend a book. It is also a dilemma. When I consider all the books I have loved and depended upon and profited from, how can I pick just one? "

" Sometimes the best reading comes just by accident. Someone talks about a book, or you're just wandering the stacks in the library, and you find a book that you love. "

" People don't take you seriously, so you have to take yourself seriously. "

" I loved the 'Three Stooges.' I still do - nyuk, nyuk. "

" If I could visit dead authors, I'd head right over to E. B. White, though I'm so in awe of him I'd probably just sit at his feet and weep. He's the master of clarity, of understated humor, of palatable political conviction. "

" People see 'tradition' as something stultifying, old, and rigid, nothing that has meaning or application for us today. But families shouldn't have to follow the blueprint of the old. They can make family traditions out of whatever makes them feel comfortable and helps bring a sense of order and stability to their lives. "

" My characters are like my children in a way. I create them, and then I worry about them forevermore. "

" If I could say anything to aspiring writers, it's to keep your own counsel, first and foremost. "

" When I write a book, I don't have an idea of what I'm doing. I just go where it leads. "

" Writing is, of course, a solitary occupation. But for many writers, myself included, it's through writing that we make certain vital connections. "