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" Novels attempt to render human experience; that's really all they are. They are meant to convey empathy for the character. "

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" 'Traveling with Pomegranates' is a very personal, very honest story about my relationship with my daughter and Ann's with her mother. "

" 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 eventually found that the soul is more than an immortal commodity to win and save. It is the repository of the inner divine, the truest part of us. "

" People who think dying is the worst thing don't know a thing about life. "

" 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. "

" A lot of time you write out of some unconscious place. I try to trust what is coming and where it wants to take me. "

" 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 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 Nancy Drew girl. Also Grimms' fairy tales. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I think there must be a place inside of us where dreams go and wait their turn. "

" 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. "

" I've always been a journal-keeper. I've always tried to write about how I'm experiencing life, and my feelings and thoughts. "

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

" Sometimes I was so busy being tuned in to outside ideas, expectations, and demands, I failed to hear the unique music in my soul. I forfeited my ability to listen creatively to my deepest self, to my own God within. "

" I grew up in Georgia, in a small town in the southwest corner of Georgia, actually, called Sylvester. "

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

" It's always been my hope that I would write a story that would inspire and would connect with people in a way that would touch hearts. "

" I prefer to read print books. Maybe I'm just a little old-school. I do read e-books. "

" 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. "

" I think many people need, even require, a narrative version of their life. I seem to be one of them. Writing memoir is, in some ways, a work of wholeness. "

" 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 grew up in the American South and came of age in the 1960s, an incredibly turbulent time. It was as if the seams of American life were being ripped apart with riots and protests. "

" I do read a poem almost every morning. Unless I'm really, really late, I have to get my poem in. "

" I have a fondness for historical fiction, something wondrous like 'Wolf Hall,' but I'll read most anything as long as the story grabs my mind or my heart, and preferably both. You would be hard pressed, however, to find science fiction on my shelves. "

" 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. "

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

" I read usually in the morning, in my kitchen at breakfast - a short reading time, usually poetry. I read in bed every night. I usually get in bed pretty early with a book, and I read until I can't prop my eyes open anymore - sometimes rather late. "