Every time I finish a book, I forget everything I learned writing it - the information just disappears out of my head

My darling girl, when are you going to realize that being normal is not necessarily a virtue? It rather denotes a lack of courage." - Aunt Frances

Others said May was best, that sweet green time when lilacs bloomed and gardens along Main Street were filled with sugary pink peonies and Dutch tulips.

It was a great escape for me and it was a way to take a break from what was going on in my own world, to go into another world.

Be careful what you wish for. I know that for a fact. Wishes are brutal, unforgiving things. They burn your tongue the moment they're spoken and you can never take them back.

I wonder how a lioness will manage in a dovecote. Can you put away your teeth and claws?

The weak are cruel. The strong have no need to be.

Once you know some things, you can't unknow them. It's a burden that can never be given away.

This was what it meant to be human, to know that time moved and all things changed.

No one knows you like a person with whom you've shared a childhood. No one will ever understand you in quite the same way.

The evening had turned sweet and blue.

I'm fine. Well, I'm not fine - I'm here.""Is there something wrong with that?""Absolutely.

He is no longer mine to lose, but the grief is there, a gnawing sense of disbelief.

Everyone deals with loss. I'm no different, but we all find our ways of coming through things. Is it tough? Of course, but you find the strength to push on through.

I was a very scared child.

I am a writer. I could not afford to take 15 months off from my writing career to play detective.

What is happening today is that there are millions of children who are not lifted up to the first rung of the ladder. Then they are condemned when they don't know how to climb from there.

Southerners have never been afraid of seasoning. It's kind of the other way around; our seasoning is afraid of us.

It's too bad that it takes egregious behavior or some kind of crisis to get people to take notice and get clearer about things that were just below the surface.

Many people start a business only to make money. Just to make money is not a strong enough mission.

Madame Bovary and a flying carpet, they are both untrue in the same way. Somebody made them up.