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" 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. "

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" 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. "

Elizabeth Berg

Child

Time

Single

" In this wide world, I don't think that there's just one person for any of us. I think we look until we find one that feels right, and oftentimes, it works out just fine. "

" I don't really like questions about the writing process, because the truth is I don't know how I write. "

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

" 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. "

Elizabeth Berg

Thought

Mother

" 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. "

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

" I love to listen to people talk, especially when they're being really honest and they're not trying to sound any particular way. "

" 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. "

" Everybody complains about getting older, but I find it such a rich time of life. There are negative things about it, I suppose, but more than that, I'm finding it to be a very positive experience in which growth suggests itself in a much more alluring way than it did when I was young - isn't that funny? "

" 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. "

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

" Elvis is symbolic of a lot of things, dreams coming true being one of them. "

" I like my house to feel like a place where I can just lie back and say, 'Ahhhhh, I'm home.' "

" I look to find the heart and soul of people, of my characters. I look for the truth of them and the truths about life that are presented through them. "

" In writing a novel about George Sand, I hoped to present her as the talented, beguiling, complicated and occasionally infuriating woman I think she was, but I hope, too, that readers will enjoy the people she surrounded herself with. "

" The process is different for every book, but there are similarities. I always draw from the inside out. I don't plot them ahead of time, and I'm always surprised by things that happen in my books. "

" When you have that deep kind of hunger that is part longing, what's better to eat than the best apple pie? Or the best potato salad and guacamole? Or the best deviled eggs and crab cakes and white chocolate raspberry pie? "

" We're not just writers; we're readers probably more than anything else. That's how you learn how to write and how you learn to appreciate good writing: by reading. "

" It usually takes about a year to write each book. I don't plan it that way. I don't set deadlines. If a book wants to take longer, it can. "

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

" When I write, I operate as a writer and a reader both - I never know what's going to happen. "

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

" Never try to copy other writers, and never try to have a formula. It has to come from your heart and soul. "

" You need a place to work that works for you, and you need people to understand that when you are writing, you are doing a rarefied type of brain surgery and therefore should not be subject to a million random interruptions. "

" I don't have a medicine cabinet. "

Elizabeth Berg

Cabinet

Medicine

" We're such imperfect beings. I think that's more often the case than not. "

" The process of writing and creating and answering that very unique call inside yourself has nothing to do with agents and sales and all that stuff. "

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

" I find life a mix of humor and pathos, and all my books reflect that to one degree or another. "