What I can tell you is DO IT. Publish book one and get book two out as soon as possible. There are very few Harper Lee’s. Most of us are going to have to write a few books to get good at it.

Believe in yourself and start achieving your dream. It waits for you on the other side of the publish button.

Honesty makes stories real and characters memorable. From there, taking them to where they need to go will be all the development they need.

You have to put yourself out there as a writer, you can’t play it safe.

Kids are flat-out freaking hilarious if you are paying attention. Not just my kid, but every kid.

Open your soul and put it out there and dare the world to read it, ready to have them stomp on you and laugh, but ready to do it again the next day.

The best part of being a writer is you get to tell people you’re a writer. That’s still considered cool.

Who do I think would appreciate my book?I’m surprised anybody does. Oops, did I say that out loud?

I wasn’t a class clown, because nuns have no sense of humor. They have rulers.

It’s amazing how my mind opens up right when I have to run on the treadmill. I’ve finished three chapters rather than run a mile.

I usually end have one outrageous minor character. He or she says the stuff I wish I had said in real life. Readers will love that character.

If a place is in your blood, you leave it at your peril. You will never be happy anywhere else.

Is there any one maxim which ought to be acted upon throughout one's whole life? Surely the maxim of loving kindness is such: Do not unto others what you would not they should do unto you.

You instinctively like what you can't do.

Sexism and racism are parallel problems. You can compare them in some ways, but they're not at all the same. But they're both symptoms inside the white male power structure.

The man who thinks hateful thoughts brings hatred upon himself. The man who thinks loving thoughts is loved.

What is South Africa’s sound? What are they supposed to bring that ignites the rest of the body of Christ around the globe?

The fact is, there are Fortune 500 companies that have been founded during recessions.

Take care that no one hates you justly.

Don't cheer me, just hear me Out 'cause I got the clout-shout (Ho!) Before I turn the party out

Genre fiction was looked at as a ghetto, but I wonder now if realist fiction, sealing itself off in the glum suburbs of a dysfunctional society, denying the use of imagination, was the ghetto.