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" No matter what kind of writing you do, it's always the details that make the story. "

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" 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. "

" With 'Durable Goods,' I meant only to write about being an army brat. What emerged was a story about compassion - the need for it, the expression of it. "

" Some people read an interesting or provocative newspaper article, and that's the end of that. A writer reads such an article, and her imagination gets fired up. Questions occur to her. She might feel an urge to finish the story that the article suggests. "

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

" When I wrote 'Home Safe,' I wanted to look at a number of things: the mystery and joy and pain of creativity. What happens when a vital safety net is suddenly removed. The difficulty some people have in growing up. The way a deep love can be as crippling as it is satisfying. But mostly, I wanted to look at the mother-daughter relationship. "

" It is one thing to see your friend dance around a table when she's 25, quite another thing to see her doing it when she's 62. "

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

" I've always felt an overwhelming need to get out what was inside. The vehicle for me was words on paper - not speech, not art, not dance, not anything else. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Oftentimes, I need to write about something in order to understand it. "

" 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. "

" I have always believed in helping people whose work I admire. "

" 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. "

" I can't decide if I'm a hippie or elegant older woman, a farmer's wife, a crazy person. "

" 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. "

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

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

" When I lived alone in Chicago, I had a lot of loneliness issues. "

" 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. "

" I hope to show the great worth of women. So far as I'm concerned, we're still underappreciated. "

" In the most self-protective of ways, I don't think about the reader when I'm writing - I just think about the story. "

" 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? "

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

" As for my 'real life,' yes, I do have friends who are different from me, and I find it refreshing being around them. "

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

" 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. "

" I love libraries, as anyone who has a brain does. "

" You should not pay too much attention to what anyone tells you, including me. It's very, very important to follow your own map. "

" I just cannot stand an unmade bed. "