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" My first novel didn't sell well. It was really painful and humiliating and shocking to me. "

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" I drop my kid off at school and then race home, and it's a very limited time. I can only do really serious writing for a couple of hours. And then I always go on a walk, I do a one-to-two-hour walk; I don't go running or hard hiking. "

" In a lot of ways, TV writing taught me how to be a good storyteller. I learned about dialogue, scenes, moving the plot forward. "

" There's a happiness that comes from writing that I won't live without. "

" I think that everyone in Seattle, their daily existence, is enriched by all the charitable giving that is courtesy of Microsoft. "

" I think because I try to keep things as real as I can, or I try to start from a place of reality, I almost don't have the imagination to write a book that's not set where I am. "

" We need to preserve our neighborhoods, our small business, our local economy. "

" I learned that comedy is born out of strong characters. I won't begin writing a character until I have a clear take on them. "

" When you need a good laugh, do you reach for a book? I don't. I expect books to move me deeply and submerge me in another reality. So when a novel makes me roar with laughter, it's always a delightful surprise. "

" And dialogue, I'm good at it, and it's because it's the only thing you have to work with in TV writing. "

" I think a novel has to be about where you are at a given moment in time. I think it really needs to represent some specific pain you're going through. it's not just a story. "

" My father was a screenwriter, and I kind of grew up in that world. "

" In my high-minded and naive way, I believed the only books worth reading were the classics. "

" Ruthless concern with story is what I learned in television. "

" I survived many a youth hostel bunk room reading Tolstoy by flashlight. "

" Much of the time in the writer's room is spent working on story, and I was always challenging myself to make it more interesting, tighter and more surprising: to come at it sideways in a way that the audience wasn't expecting. "

" My strength as a TV writer was my total lack of interest in television. "

" 'Mad About You' fit my sensibility the most of any show that I worked on, and as a result, it was really fun. It felt like a very natural fit. "

" In TV writing, I felt like Gulliver being tied down by the Lilliputians. There's so much more freedom in fiction writing. "

" I keep an elaborate calendar for my characters detailing on which dates everything happens. I'm constantly revising this as I go along. It gives me the freedom to intricately plot my story, knowing it will at least hold up on a timeline. "

" Creating art is painful. It takes time, practice, and the courage to stand alone. "

" After decades spent in rewrite rooms surrounded by other shouting writers, I discovered that I work best alone. I like being in charge of my time, working out the problems according to my own rhythms and being able to nap. That's a big one, the napping on demand! "

" An artist must create. If she doesn't, she will become a menace to society. "

" I think that's the most important job of a novelist - to bring authority to their writing. "

" I just feel like there's this illicit thrill in reading other people's mail and spying on their lives. "