Part of what compels me to write day after day, chapter after chapter, is the discovery process, seeing the characters evolve as I get deeper and deeper into the story.

My only relief is to sleep. When I'm sleeping, I'm not sad, I'm not angry, I'm not lonely, I'm nothing.

Sometimes you have to say, 'Today's just not my day.

To be honest, I want readers to be wrung out. As a novelist, I don't have a political agenda or specific philosophy; I'm trying to create a gut-wrenching, intimate, memorable experience.

My entire life has been centered around my writing, and by that I mean finding the time to write.

What I like to do and what I have to do are two separate things. I like to read, swim, watch TV, spend time with my family. But I have to work, so I do that.

To be perfectly frank: I don't write women's fiction. I write intimate, gritty, realistic, character-driven fiction that happens to be thrown into the women's fiction category.

I think there's an unnatural amount of social pressure on women, particularly mothers, to conform to certain standards of behavior, particularly in regard to our children.

I've always been a writer who tackles complex themes and risky subjects - I write about the things that people think but never say aloud.

I love it, I hate it, it's ecstasy when I'm writing well, it's despair when I'm not. I wouldn't wish this life on anyone, nor would I, could I, ever give it up.

I hope I'll keep people up at night, unable to stop turning pages. That's my goal: exhausted, emotionally drained readers who can't stop crying.

When everything gets too much, give some away

Meanwhile the Cosmos is rich beyond measure: the total number of stars in the universe is greater than all the grains of sand on all the beaches of the planet Earth.

Many have doubts

Jackson was not a religious man when he came to Lexington.

A good speaker does not stutter.

Didn't we, like our grandchildren, begin with a childhood we thought would never end? Now, all of a sudden, I'm older than my parents were when I thought they were old.

[Bashar] Assad is one of the main reasons why ISIS even exists to begin with. Assad is a puppet of Iran.

I'm not really very funny, I just keep recycling jokes.

For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.

It's my absolute passionate belief that every single human being, man, woman, or child, is aching to find a face-to-face relationship with God.