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

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" 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. "

" Reading was a huge part of my life as a child - we were a family of storytellers. "

" Gradually it occurred to me that we spend a great deal of life asleep and that dreams are little narratives, little stories. I thought, 'Who's choreographing this stuff?' "

" I'm a big believer in the way ritual can put us in connection with our spirituality. "

" I can't explain exactly why it lives within me for so long and passionately. But race matters to me; racial equality matters to me, as does gender. There is something about these kinds of social injustices that go to the deep of me. "

" 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 learned a long time ago that some people would rather die than forgive. It's a strange truth, but forgiveness is a painful and difficult process. It's not something that happens overnight. It's an evolution of the heart. "

" I first saw 'The Dinner Party' in 2007 at the Brooklyn Museum in New York City. While perusing the Heritage Panels, which honor 999 women who have made important contributions to Western history, I came upon the names of two sisters, Sarah and Angelina Grimke. "

" I sometimes start keeping a journal about the writing process itself. Particularly when I get the ideas, and I am trying to brood over the chaos phase. In writing a novel, you really have to brood over a lot of chaos of ideas and possibilities. "

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

" On weekends, I sit in a lounge chair on my balcony. I love to be outside when the weather's right. I can stay there pretty much all day. "

" We have to learn not to feel guilty about letting our imagination browse around, and you know, in writing fiction particularly. But I think, in any kind of writing, we have to learn to allow ourselves to approach it in a contemplative way. "

" I want my words to open a portal through which the reader may leave the self, migrate to some other human sky and return 'disposed' to otherness. "

" I've noticed that most people tend to go through life preserving their differences from others. "

" 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. "

" I was a very good nurse, but I burned out after eight years or so because it wasn't what I truly wanted to do. Writing is what I belong to. "

" I never know how to give advice to a writer because there's so much you could say, and it's hard to translate your own experience. But of course, I always try. The main thing that I usually end up saying is to read a lot. To read a great deal and to learn from that. "

" 'The Secret Life of Bees' was my first novel, so I had no process. I was flying by the seat of my pants, as they say, trying to understand how I, as a novelist, would work with story. "

" 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. "

" There are so many different things out there trying to hook our attention, we writers have to be very selective and make certain that it is coming from inside out, not outside in. "

" I don't go in search of ideas; I try to let them find me. "

" I came to believe that my true identity goes beyond the outer roles I play. It transcends the ego. I came to understand that there is an Authentic 'I' within - an 'I Am,' or divine spark within the soul. "

" My stories have a deep spiritual core because I have a deep desire to understand things of the spirit, but yet I don't think I've written these stories from any kind of specific religious agenda because I don't think that would work. "

" Giving voice to marginalised characters is extremely important to me. I want to explore the pain of disenfranchisement, the social strata and boundaries we create and how to make them more permeable. "

" 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. "

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

" I think books with spiritual themes simply point to the deeper mysteries of life - to what lies beyond us, to what's hidden inside of us, or perhaps to an understanding of what truly matters. "

" I feel like we need to be aware of the ways we use and misuse religious dogma: whether it takes us deeper into love and inclusion or it separates us. "

" 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. "