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" If I don't feel like writing on a certain day, I just go to the cafe and hang around. "

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" I think conflict is one of the things that makes for a good story. "

" 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. "

" I think the most important quality for a writer to have is empathy. "

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

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

" 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? "

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

" 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! "

" I never meant to write about the experience of losing a good friend to breast cancer when I was going through it. But after it was over, I realized that although something deeply sad had happened, something truly beautiful also had. "

" The friends in my real life do tend to be smart and funny and creative. I am lucky! "

" 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. "

" I do think that there's an art form to parenting, and I have nothing but admiration for those who do it well. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" No matter what you write, you need an active imagination. "

" When you have that deep kind of hunger that is part longing, what's better to eat than the best apple pie? Or the best potato salad and guacamole? Or the best deviled eggs and crab cakes and white chocolate raspberry pie? "

" If I'm on the road for Random House, I'm presenting a book with the hope people will buy it. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I tend not to write books that are really, really long, and I'm also a pretty fast writer. "

" Whenever I write a novel, most of the time it starts with barest slip of an idea. "

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

" 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. "

" 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 writers are born, not made. "

" No, I never thought that I would be a writer. I had always been told I could write well, but it never occurred to me that I might make my living that way. "

" 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. "

" I never was a big believer that you can teach writing per se. "

" I'm the kind of person who is entertained watching someone simply be themselves, whether they're putting their children to bed or making dinner or sitting at the table reading the morning newspaper. "