I am always urging my students to honor their writing practice, to set up a schedule.

If there was ever a time to boil up some grits it is now.

I take mentoring very seriously and I am on the board of an organization called Girls Write Now, where we match teen girls and writing mentors because it changes their lives.

Remember that the writing itself is good for you. If your story is so close to home that you are afraid to write it, it probably means you need to write it.

When you write a novel, you make other people see your imaginary friends.

I take mentoring very seriously and as a result I hardly get any work done during the school year.

This is what I have come to know: Our past is never passed and there is no such thing as moving on. But there is this telling and there is such a thing as passing through.

When it comes to memoir, we want to catch the author in a lie. When we read fiction, we want to catch the author telling the truth.

Abandonment doesn't have the sharp but dissipating sting of a slap. It's like a punch to the gut, bruising your skin and driving the precious air from your body.

My first novel, Leaving Atlanta, took at look at my hometown in the late 1970s, when the city was terrorized by a serial murderer that left at least 29 African-American children dead.

It's funny how three or four notes of anger can be struck at once, creating the perfect chord of fury.

It takes you to bring the hidden wonders into light. Decide to make it happen.

You have always given me more than I gave to you. You were the wings on which I soared.Lotte Lehmann

Somethings wrong with us for us to value ourselves so little.

Money goes where money is, money yearns where money is.

The ability to make hard truths palatable is one that every long-lived co-leader has mastered.

Good and bad may not be dissevered; There is, as there should be, a commingling.

You don't reach Serendib by plotting a course for it. You have to set out in good faith for elsewhere and lose your bearings... serendipitously.

I'm just an all-around happy girl who loves everything about her life.

He's hard-core, but I think he's actually more of an actor.

My heart has made its mind up And I'm afraid it's you.