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" I think conflict is one of the things that makes for a good story. "
Elizabeth Berg
Good
Think
Conflict
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" I tend not to write books that are really, really long, and I'm also a pretty fast writer. "
Elizabeth Berg
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Books
" I think titles are extremely important for novels: They can set the tone, tip you off, serve as shorthand for what the essential contents are. "
Elizabeth Berg
Off
Think
Tone
" When I write a book, I don't have an idea of what I'm doing. I just go where it leads. "
Elizabeth Berg
Where
Just
Go
" I remember, as a child, wanting all the time to buy my parents presents. I stood around forlornly in fancy shops, unable to afford a single thing. "
Elizabeth Berg
Child
Time
Single
" You should not pay too much attention to what anyone tells you, including me. It's very, very important to follow your own map. "
Elizabeth Berg
Too Much
Important
Attention
" As a child, I saw my mother prepare for Christmas every year, and it never occurred to me that labor was involved. I thought it was my mother's joy and privilege to hang tinsel on the tree strand by strand, to make sure that every room in the house had a touch of Christmas, down to the Santa-themed rug and hand towels in the bathroom. "
Elizabeth Berg
Thought
Mother
Me
" I love to listen to people talk, especially when they're being really honest and they're not trying to sound any particular way. "
Elizabeth Berg
People
Love
Talk
" I have not been in a book club where there were any men, and I have not, in fact, heard of book groups that were mixed. "
Elizabeth Berg
Where
Club
Book
" I hope to show the great worth of women. So far as I'm concerned, we're still underappreciated. "
Elizabeth Berg
Worth
Great
Far
" One of the great pleasures in writing 'The Dream Lover' was learning about some of the real people who populated George Sand's life. What a cast of characters! And what a pleasure to recreate them upon the page! "
Elizabeth Berg
Great
Learning
Life
" 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. "
Elizabeth Berg
Reading
You
Best
" I think Chicago is the best city in the country, hands down, but I don't like the winter there anymore. "
Elizabeth Berg
Think
Down
Hands
" I know that sometimes it happens that a novelist is embarrassed about their early works. For me, it's the opposite: I believe 'Durable Goods' is the best thing I've written. "
Elizabeth Berg
Opposite
Believe
Best
" A ritual or tradition can be as simple as something you do every night, like read a story to a small child, or something you do weekly, such as go out for Chinese food. "
Elizabeth Berg
Food
Child
Story
" No matter what kind of writing you do, it's always the details that make the story. "
Elizabeth Berg
Kind
You
Story
" I've been to Iowa many times before. You have to love Iowa, or you're not an American. "
Elizabeth Berg
To Love
You
Before
" 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. "
Elizabeth Berg
Ahead
Time
Process
" When I look at my own work, I see love, loss, and loneliness. Part of it might be that I was an army brat. I moved around all the time. There was a sense of nothing being permanent. "
Elizabeth Berg
Look
Loneliness
Work
" No, I am not my mother. I am deeply, endlessly grateful for what she did and who she was, but I am a different kind of person. "
Elizabeth Berg
Mother
Who
She
" I always wrote as a vehicle for expression but did not try writing for publication until my mid-thirties, at which time I started writing for magazines. I wrote essays and then short stories, then moved into novels. "
Elizabeth Berg
Try
Always
Time
" I can't decide if I'm a hippie or elegant older woman, a farmer's wife, a crazy person. "
Elizabeth Berg
Farmer
Crazy
Wife
" In writing a novel about George Sand, I hoped to present her as the talented, beguiling, complicated and occasionally infuriating woman I think she was, but I hope, too, that readers will enjoy the people she surrounded herself with. "
Elizabeth Berg
Hope
Think
Woman
" It is true that all mothers do things differently from their own mothers, but they don't necessarily do them better. "
Elizabeth Berg
Things
Mothers
True
" Nurses don't get paid very much. It didn't take long to realize that I could make more as a writer. I loved nursing, but I loved writing more. "
Elizabeth Berg
Realize
Long
Loved
" 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. "
Elizabeth Berg
Book
Deadlines
Plan
" My favorite splurge is homemade chocolate cake and vanilla ice cream or a Sausage McMuffin with egg or scalloped potatoes or turkey yanked right off the carcass and dipped in gravy or See's chocolate. "
Elizabeth Berg
Cake
See
Ice Cream
" If I'm on the road for Random House, I'm presenting a book with the hope people will buy it. "
Elizabeth Berg
House
Book
Hope
" I never was a big believer that you can teach writing per se. "
Elizabeth Berg
You
Big
Never
" 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. "
Elizabeth Berg
Family
Today
People
" I don't have a medicine cabinet. "
Elizabeth Berg
Cabinet
Medicine