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" Traditions insist upon themselves. Look around, and you will see them trying to exist everywhere, in everyone's life. "

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" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" As for the notion that everything has already been said, maybe it has, but life is like meatloaf: there are so many different ways to present it. "

" Traditions are the inventions of people who mean to routinely put love and comfort and meaning into their lives and in the lives of those they live with. "

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

" Every book is its own experience, the writing of it. "

" My favorite splurge is homemade chocolate cake and vanilla ice cream or a Sausage McMuffin with egg or scalloped potatoes or turkey yanked right off the carcass and dipped in gravy or See's chocolate. "

" 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? "

" When you've written long enough, you see that there's a common theme in your work. "

" People see 'tradition' as something stultifying, old, and rigid, nothing that has meaning or application for us today. But families shouldn't have to follow the blueprint of the old. They can make family traditions out of whatever makes them feel comfortable and helps bring a sense of order and stability to their lives. "

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

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" My characters are like my children in a way. I create them, and then I worry about them forevermore. "

" One of the great pleasures in writing 'The Dream Lover' was learning about some of the real people who populated George Sand's life. What a cast of characters! And what a pleasure to recreate them upon the page! "

" 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. "

" I just cannot stand an unmade bed. "

" I never was a big believer that you can teach writing per se. "

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

" 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. "

" A ritual or tradition can be as simple as something you do every night, like read a story to a small child, or something you do weekly, such as go out for Chinese food. "

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

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

" Writing was always a release for me, a great joy. It wasn't work. "

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

" 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. "

" My mother and her five sisters have always been living examples of the great love that can exist among sisters - and in a large family. "