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" You write about what you know, and you write about what you want to know. "

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" I believed my story would be helpful to young women my daughter's age, who are still in the process of forming themselves as women, and in need of encouragement to remain true to themselves. "

" I had known there had been a serial killer on Mount Tamalpais, and it felt so incongruous in such a beautiful, peaceful spot. "

" The vehemence with which certain critics have chosen not simply to criticize what I've written, but to challenge my writing this story at all, speaks of what the book is about: fear of disapproval. "

" I continued to protect him with my silence. "

" Growing up in the fifties and sixties, I can only remember knowing one child, ever, whose parents got a divorce, and hardly any whose mother 'worked' at anything besides raising her children. "

" One life is not enough for me. I want to go lots of places. "

" More than any other setting - more than battlefields or boardrooms or a spaceship headed for intergalactic travel - I'll put my money on the family to provide an endless source of comedy, tragedy and intrigue. "

" Those who rhapsodize about the ease and joy of childhood have perhaps forgotten what it's like to be 12 years old. "

" Although Salinger had long since cut me out of his life completely and made it plain that he had nothing but contempt for me, the thought of becoming the object of his wrath was more than I felt ready to take on. "

" At Home in the World is the story of a young woman, raised in some difficult circumstances, and how she survives. It tells a story of redemption, not victimhood. "

" The portrait of my parents is a complicated one, but lovingly drawn. "

" When people ask what I write about, that's what I tell them: 'The drama of human relationships.' I'm not even close to running out of material. "

" Not only did I avoid speaking of Salinger; I resisted thinking about him. I did not reread his letters to me. The experience had been too painful. "

" It is not the task of a reader to please her subjects. "

" Long after Salinger sent me away, I continued to believe his standards and expectations were the best ones. "

" If a man wishes to truly not be written about, he would do well not to write letters to 18-year-old girls, inviting them into his life. "

" If I told you about all the stories I don't tell, I would be violating the very boundaries I set for myself. "

" Nothing like being visible, publishing one's work, and speaking openly about one's life, to disabuse the world of the illusion of one's perfection and purity. "

" I compromised my ability to tell my story, at the most basic level. "

" My job is writing. I get paid to do it. When was the last time you heard someone challenge a doctor for making money off of cancer? "

" The silence was part of the story I wanted to tell. "

" I have long observed that the act of writing is viewed, by some, as an elite and otherworldly act, all the more so if a person isn't paid for what she writes. "

" Women writers have been told, forever, that our stories were not valuable. Not as valuable as men's stories about wars, business, power. "

" I've had some wonderful successes and some extreme disappointments in my career and my life. "

" The process of writing has always started for me when I put myself in a place where no one distracts me. "

" I wonder what it is that the people who criticize me for telling this story truly object to: is it that I have dared to tell the story? Or that the story turns out not to be the one they wanted to hear? "

" Many women my age have known the experience of giving up crucial parts of themselves to please the man they love. "

" There is a theme that runs through my work, and that is: the toxic property of keeping secrets. "

" A person who deserves my loyalty receives it. "

" I was giving a speech one time, and the woman who introduced me said, 'Well, she used to be J. D. Salinger's girlfriend. I thought, 'God, is that all I've been?' I didn't want to be reduced to that. "