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" It is not the task of a reader to please her subjects. "

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" Not only did I avoid speaking of Salinger; I resisted thinking about him. I did not reread his letters to me. The experience had been too painful. "

" I have long observed that the act of writing is viewed, by some, as an elite and otherworldly act, all the more so if a person isn't paid for what she writes. "

" It's not only children who grow. Parents do too. As much as we watch to see what our children do with their lives, they are watching us to see what we do with ours. I can't tell my children to reach for the sun. All I can do is reach for it, myself. "

" I've had some wonderful successes and some extreme disappointments in my career and my life. "

" I was giving a speech one time, and the woman who introduced me said, 'Well, she used to be J. D. Salinger's girlfriend. I thought, 'God, is that all I've been?' I didn't want to be reduced to that. "

" Many women my age have known the experience of giving up crucial parts of themselves to please the man they love. "

" I compromised my ability to tell my story, at the most basic level. "

" I had known there had been a serial killer on Mount Tamalpais, and it felt so incongruous in such a beautiful, peaceful spot. "

" I think of myself as a realistic writer, not a creator of soap opera or melodrama. "

" Women writers have been told, forever, that our stories were not valuable. Not as valuable as men's stories about wars, business, power. "

" I do not outline. There are writers I know and count as my friends who certainly do it the other way, but for me, part of the adventure is not knowing how it's going to turn out. "

" A person who deserves my loyalty receives it. "

" For 25 years, I did take my responsibilities as a pleaser of others sufficiently seriously. "

" I wonder what it is that the people who criticize me for telling this story truly object to: is it that I have dared to tell the story? Or that the story turns out not to be the one they wanted to hear? "

" My job is writing. I get paid to do it. When was the last time you heard someone challenge a doctor for making money off of cancer? "

" Those who rhapsodize about the ease and joy of childhood have perhaps forgotten what it's like to be 12 years old. "

" I believe every one of us possesses a fundamental right to tell our own story. "

" If I told you about all the stories I don't tell, I would be violating the very boundaries I set for myself. "

" One life is not enough for me. I want to go lots of places. "

" The process of writing has always started for me when I put myself in a place where no one distracts me. "

" A good home must be made, not bought. In the end, it's not track lighting or a sun room that brings light into a kitchen. "

" The vehemence with which certain critics have chosen not simply to criticize what I've written, but to challenge my writing this story at all, speaks of what the book is about: fear of disapproval. "

" Teach a child to play solitaire, and she'll be able to entertain herself when there's no one around. Teach her tennis, and she'll know what to do when she's on a court. But raise her to feel comfortable in nature, and the whole planet is her home. "

" There is a theme that runs through my work, and that is: the toxic property of keeping secrets. "

" The painter who feels obligated to depict his subjects as uniformly beautiful or handsome and without flaws will fall short of making art. "

" Nothing like being visible, publishing one's work, and speaking openly about one's life, to disabuse the world of the illusion of one's perfection and purity. "

" More than any other setting - more than battlefields or boardrooms or a spaceship headed for intergalactic travel - I'll put my money on the family to provide an endless source of comedy, tragedy and intrigue. "

" The silence was part of the story I wanted to tell. "

" I continued to protect him with my silence. "

" I believed my story would be helpful to young women my daughter's age, who are still in the process of forming themselves as women, and in need of encouragement to remain true to themselves. "