I want to do something important in my life, and I think that adding beauty to the world with books... really is important.

It is when we are most lost that we sometimes find our truest friends.

I learned to write from authors. I didn't know any, but I read their books.

Every person is able to add beauty, whether by growing flowers, or singing, or cooking luscious meals, or raising sweet pets. Every part of life can be art.

It is odd how we sometimes deny ourselves the very pleasure we have longed for and which is finally within our reach.

I love being a writer because I want to leave something here on earth to make it better, prettier, stronger.

But those with an evil heart seem to have a talent for destroying anything beautiful which is about to bloom.

In November, the trees are standing all sticks and bones. Without their leaves, how lovely they are, spreading their arms like dancers. They know it is time to be still.

When the wicked want to bring down the innocent, they aim for a loving heart.

I am so grateful to be a writer. I hope every child grows up and finds something to do that will seem important and that will seem precious. Happy living and, especially, happy playing.

Writing stories has given me the power to change things I could not change as a child. I can make boys into doctors. I can make fathers stop drinking. I can make mothers stay.

If you're so pro-life, do me a favour: don't lock arms and block medical clinics. If you're so pro-life, lock arms and block cemeteries.

It is always incomprehensible to a man that a woman should ever refuse an offer of marriage.

Many social practices essential to the welfare of the species involve the control of one person by another, and no one can suppress them who has any concern for human achievements

Eavesdropping is such a regular-person activity.

All men will be sailors then Until the sea shall free them

My books are like water; those of the great geniuses are wine. (Fortunately) everybody drinks water.

Nana glanced at Ben. "I think your mom has catepillars in her ears. She keeps repeating everything I say like she can't hear me.

All I write about is what's happened to me and to people I know, and the better I know them, the more likely they are to be written about.

'What would be better for us to believe!' This sounds very like a definition of truth

If a poor house is well kept, or a poor girl well groomed, there is elegance if not beauty. If good people should come upon hard times, why should they immediately give up on themselves?