Believe in yourself and start achieving your dream. It waits for you on the other side of the publish button.

Honesty makes stories real and characters memorable. From there, taking them to where they need to go will be all the development they need.

You have to put yourself out there as a writer, you can’t play it safe.

Kids are flat-out freaking hilarious if you are paying attention. Not just my kid, but every kid.

Open your soul and put it out there and dare the world to read it, ready to have them stomp on you and laugh, but ready to do it again the next day.

The best part of being a writer is you get to tell people you’re a writer. That’s still considered cool.

Who do I think would appreciate my book?I’m surprised anybody does. Oops, did I say that out loud?

I wasn’t a class clown, because nuns have no sense of humor. They have rulers.

It’s amazing how my mind opens up right when I have to run on the treadmill. I’ve finished three chapters rather than run a mile.

I usually end have one outrageous minor character. He or she says the stuff I wish I had said in real life. Readers will love that character.

Writers need to be open to trying new things. My first bestseller was a cookbook, and from that experience I learned things about marketing a book that benefitted me greatly.

To complain that I could only be married once was like complaining that I had only been born once.

I always win.

Greater love hath no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friends.

Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep thoughts can be winnowed from deep nonsense.

I was so astonished that I could think of nothing to say, but wondered irrelevantly if I was to be caught with a teapot in my hand on every dramatic occasion.

On the whole our armed services have been doing pretty well in the way of keeping us defended, but I hope our State Department will remember that it is really the department of achieving peace.

As freely as the firmament embraces the world, or the sun pours forth impartially his beams, so mercy must encircle both friend and foe.

I think Pan is a superhero movie; I mean, the kid flies in the end.

I believe in following your instincts with the people that you like and who you like to be with.

Who wants to be a goddess when we can be human? Perfection is a flaw disguised as control.