Writers like to write, and writing in different forms - short, long, bite-sized, done on the fly, done with painstaking attention - all interest me.

Orchid hunting is a mortal occupation.

I think of myself as something of a connoisseur of procrastination, creative and dogged in my approach to not getting things done.

Living in a rural setting exposes you to so many marvelous things - the natural world and the particular texture of small-town life, and the exhilarating experience of open space.

You have to simply love writing, and you have to remind yourself often that you love it.

Libraries are what is best about us as a society: open, exciting, rich, informative, free, inclusive, engaging.

One of the very best reasons for having children is to be reminded of the incomparable joys of a snow day.

A snow day literally and figuratively falls from the sky, unbidden, and seems like a thing of wonder.

An ordinary life examined closely reveals itself to be exquisite and complicated and exceptional, somehow managing to be both heroic and plain.

There's a marvelous sense of mastery that comes with writing a sentence that sounds exactly as you want it to.

Even after I'd published three books and had been writing full-time for twenty years, my father continued to urge me to go to law school.

If you continue to concentrate so deeply on the negative factors you are unable to acknowledge all the positive results.

There is no brutality and cruelty in battles and wars

We do not go (to the theatre) like our ancestors to escape from the pressure of reality so much as to confirm our experience of it.

For fast-acting relief try slowing down.

Trust in dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.

Anytime fashion and music go hand-in-hand and it really is an organic fit, it's amazing.

The United States government does not authorise or condone torture of detainees. Torture, and conspiracy to commit torture, are crimes under US law, wherever they may occur in the world.

If all we've got to look forward to is disloyalty and treachery, why do we even make friends?" "Again, human nature. Hoping for the best is what drives us.

I’d rather lose myself in passion than lose my passion.

I think I'm most nervous about revealing how nervous I have always been. People think me calm, confident, poised. Inside I'm a jelly.