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

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" If I don't feel like writing on a certain day, I just go to the cafe and hang around. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

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

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

" Writing is, of course, a solitary occupation. But for many writers, myself included, it's through writing that we make certain vital connections. "

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

" 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? "

" I got married at twenty-five and had children right away, so I didn't have the worry that I would never get to have children. "

" I don't have a medicine cabinet. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

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

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

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

" 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. "

" If I could visit dead authors, I'd head right over to E. B. White, though I'm so in awe of him I'd probably just sit at his feet and weep. He's the master of clarity, of understated humor, of palatable political conviction. "

" Not being as self-contained as men, we need to share things: It's almost as though you only know what you feel about things after you share them with a woman. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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? "

" As we continue to become a society of tweets, shorter and shorter messages, there's great value in the contemplation and reflection that comes from reading a long body of work. "

" I'm the kind of person who is entertained watching someone simply be themselves, whether they're putting their children to bed or making dinner or sitting at the table reading the morning newspaper. "

" 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. "