You can't lay down laws for what people think and hope.

I don't have ugly ducklings turning into swans in my stories. I have ugly ducklings turning into confident ducks.

I try to make my characters kind of ordinary, somebody that anybody could be. Because we've all had loves, perhaps love and loss, people can relate to my characters.

Nobody is ordinary if you know where to look.

I'm an escapist kind of writer.

Women who start out as ugly ducklings don't become beautiful swans. What they mainly become is confident ducks. They take charge of their lives.

The whole art of life is knowing the right time to say things.

Always write as if you are talking to someone. It works. Don't put on any fancy phrases or accents or things you wouldn't say in real life.

If you don't go to a dance you can never be rejected but you'll never get to dance either.

Because I saw my parents relaxing in armchairs and reading and liking it, I thought it was a peaceful grown-up thing to do, and I still think that.

We are all the heroes and heroines of our own lives. Our love stories are amazingly romantic; our losses and betrayals and disappointments are gigantic in our own minds.

The physical world we live in is just the beginning.

He who desires but acts not breeds pestilence.

Instead of this confusion, we need the unifying force of an official language, English, which is the language of success in America.

People move into a house a block down the road. You know who's going in. You can see and you report them to the local police. Everybody's their own cop in a way. You got to do it.

The work of art assumes the existence of the perfect spectator, and is indifferent to the fact that no such person exists.

After divorce of Pompeia in 62 BC I feel that members of my family should never be suspected of breaking the law. -Meos tam suspicione quam crimine iudico carere oportere

Comedy is a meritocracy. If you are funny, you are there. If you are not, you are out.

A man at his desk in a room with a closed door is a man at work. A woman at a desk in any room is available.

This kind of certainty comes but just once in a lifetime!

I saw a sign in Boulder. It said, 'Live Music and Darts.' Chicken wire isn't going to help at all.