Biography
"Cram your head with characters and stories. Abuse your library privileges. Never stop looking at the world, and never stop reading to find out what sense other people have made of it. If people give you a hard time and tell you to get your nose out of a book, tell them you're working. Tell them it's research. Tell them to pipe down and leave you alone."
"I don't write literary fiction - I write books that are entertaining, but are also, I hope, well-constructed and thoughtful and funny and have things to say about men and women and families and children and life in America today."
"Tell the story that's been growing in your heart, the characters you can't keep out of your head, the tale story that speaks to you, that pops into your head during your daily commute, that wakes you up in the morning."
"Read everything. Read fiction and non-fiction, read hot best sellers and the classics you never got around to in college."
"People say I'm not good at writing about men. My dad left when I was 16. Give me a break. I'm doing the best I can."
"I'm not cut out to be a famous person I can't do my hair and makeup well enough."
"Money is a tremendous advantage in just about everything, but in terms of reproduction, if you're a poor woman and you are infertile, it's like too bad, so sad. And if you are a wealthy woman, you can kind of buy whatever you want."
"The difference between people who believe they have books inside of them and those who actually write books is sheer cussed persistence - the ability to make yourself work at your craft, every day - the belief, even in the face of obstacles, that you've got something worth saying."
"If a writer writes poems and short stories and novels, but nobody ever reads them, is she really a writer?"
"If there had been an exercise I'd liked, would I have gotten this big in the first place?"