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

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.

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.

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.

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.

The spirit of God dwells in you. Recognize the great power and might of your divine-self.

Stars on our door, stars in our eyes, stars exploding in the bits of our brains where the common sense should have been

When you stop inventing reality then you see things as they really are.

It doesn't always turn out. It's not always a happy ending when sometimes you say things that you think, and it goes against the grain of the larger group.

Throughout the world today there is a gowing awareness of the failings of the Western model of development and a corresponding desire to look for more human-scale, ecological ways of living.

The process of discovering who we are and what we are here to do . . . is dependent . . . on our ability to stay positive and to find a silver lining in all events.

Study hard, practice hard, play ferociously.

Score one for Team Kendall, Payton thought. Not that it was a competition between them. Not at all.

The passport changes but the blood doesn't

The ABA works tirelessly in its efforts involving the first line of defense: the prevention of burn injuries.