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" To Southerners like my mother, 'Gone With the Wind' was not just a book; it was an answer, a clenched fist raised to the North, an anthem of defiance. "

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" I've met many, many writers who say they would never write about their family, never write about people they did not totally make up. But that is not the composition of my character. "

" I mark the reading of 'Look Homeward, Angel' as one of the pivotal events of my life. It starts off with the single greatest, knock-your-socks-off first page I have ever come across in my careful reading of world literature. "

" I've never cackled with laughter at a single line I've ever written. None of it has given me pleasure. "

" My great fear of being attacked or trivialized by my contemporaries made me concentrate on what I was trying to do as a writer. It forced me to draw some conclusions that were my own. "

" When my novel 'Beach Music' came out in 1995, I had included a couple of recipes in the book and had tried to impart some of my love of Roman cuisine and the restaurants of Rome. "

" I never read my reviews... not even the good ones. Barbra Streisand once told me, if just one person in the audience doesn't applaud, it bothers her. I'm the same way. I'd be devastated to read that someone didn't like my work. "

" My father's violence is the central fact of my art and my life. "

" I wrote a piece for the school literary magazine that now makes me think: 'My God in Heaven, this is just the worst drivel.' "

" The great thing about all my siblings is we all agree we had a horrendous childhood. It's not like it doesn't affect us now; it affects us every day, in everything we do. "

" I don't believe in happy families. "

" I still write in long hand. I type like a chimpanzee. "

" I'm fascinated by the people I grew up with and the mistakes I made - and God, I have screwed up. I like writing about where it all went off course. "

" Every industry is going to be affected (by the aging population). This creates tremendous opportunities and tremendous challenges. "

" A novel is a great act of passion and intellect, carpentry and largess. From the very beginning, I wrote to explain my own life to myself, and I invited readers who chose to make the journey with me to join me on the high wire. "

" When I was 5 years old, my mother read me 'Gone With The Wind' at night, before I went to bed. I remember her reading almost all year. "

" My father wouldn't let me take typing in childhood. "

" There's always a version of me who is the narrator. And I make myself look better than other people. "

" It's an article of faith that the novels I've loved will live inside me forever. "

" I still get weepy when I see a father being nice to his child. It so affects me. "

" I meet kids now who become novelists, poets, write for the theater and movies, who were simply inspired by what they saw during the Spoleto Festival. "

" I think I learned about the relationship between books and life from Margaret Mitchell. "

" A family is too frail a vessel to contain the risks of all the warring impulses expressed when such a group meets on common ground. "

" A recipe is a story that ends with a good meal. "

" Writing has never been that simple for me. "

" Though Nathalie Dupree did not remember much about my presence in her class, it marked me forever. I remain her enthusiast, her evangelist, her acolyte, and her grateful student. She taught me that cooking and storytelling make the most delightful coconspirators. "

" I told my kids when they were little, 'Look, kids, your mother and I are screwing you up somehow. We don't understand how, or we wouldn't do it. But we're parents. So somehow we're damaging you, and I want you to know that early. So just ignore me when I go to that part of my parenting.' "

" There are other writers who try for subtle and minimalists effects, but I don't travel in that tribe. "

" I loved my parents... but that can never change the fact that my father's violence ruined my childhood. "

" I hated my father long before I knew there was a word for hate. "

" I'm not the lovable, wonderful, tenderhearted grandfather that you read about in books. I'm grouchy and curmudgeonly, and I have a lot of rules. "