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" When I lived in Boston, I had an office that I rented because I found it wonderful to go away from my house to work: It was so quiet, and I couldn't go to the refrigerator or do the laundry. "

Elizabeth Berg

Work

Boston

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" I think writers are born, not made. "

" 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. "

" Really, my sacred place is my study where there are books that I love and things that people have given me. "

" 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 do think that there's an art form to parenting, and I have nothing but admiration for those who do it well. "

" 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! "

" 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 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. "

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

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

" 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 think the most important quality for a writer to have is empathy. "

" 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. "

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

" 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? "

" 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 tend not to write books that are really, really long, and I'm also a pretty fast writer. "

" The world of literature is so rich and so enriching. The value is inestimable of what reading does for you. "

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

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

" No, I am not my mother. I am deeply, endlessly grateful for what she did and who she was, but I am a different kind of person. "

" If I'm on the road for Random House, I'm presenting a book with the hope people will buy it. "

" 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. "

" Ideas come from life: what happens in mine, what I see happening in others', mixed with a great deal of imagination. I might see a person in a grocery store and build a whole character and life out of what's in her basket. "

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

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" When I look at my own work, I see love, loss, and loneliness. Part of it might be that I was an army brat. I moved around all the time. There was a sense of nothing being permanent. "