Being a novelist is hard for anyone - male or female. You don't get to quit your day job.

Divorce isn't such a tragedy. A tragedy's staying in an unhappy marriage, teaching your children the wrong things about love. Nobody ever died of divorce.

I've learned that some broken things stay broken, and I've learned that you can get through bad times and keep looking for better ones, as long as you have people who love you.

Sometimes the worst thing that happens to you, the thing you think you can't survive...it's the thing that makes you better than you used to be.

You should be concerned about the state of your soul, not the state of your bank account.

He loved me. He loved me, but he doesn't love me anymore, and it's not the end of the world.

Everyone has sorrow. Everyone has obligations. Everyone keeps going. You lean on the people who love you. You do the best you can, and you keep going.

People will want you to behave a certain way, to make a certain choice because it reinforces the way they see the world...But you have to do what's right for you.

My feeling about my own work is, I could be writing 'The Aeneid' and they would still have to call it chick lit or mommy lit or menopausal old hag lit.

Head's all empty, I don't care,' he'd sing to me, quoting the Grateful Dead, and I'd force a smile, thinking that my head was never empty and that if it ever was, you could be darn sure I'd care.

Read everything. Read fiction and non-fiction, read hot best sellers and the classics you never got around to in college.

Change can only stop, if THINKING stops.

Error will slip through a crack while truth will stick in a doorway.

You disappear so completely into your head sometimes," he said. "I wish I could follow you.

People don't think that bread is part of Asian culture or Asian food culture, but it's quite prevalent in Northern China, and you see it throughout Japan and as you go to Taiwan.

Food is the most important influence on your health. It is even more important than your thoughts and emotions.

It is remarkable what a woman can accomplish with just a little ambition.

Opinion is a flitting thing But Truth outlasts the Sun.

I'm of the opinion that we're always on holy ground and some days it's just more apparent.

And yet he had loved her. A Bookish girl heedless of her beauty, unconscious of her effect. She'd been prepared to live her life alone but from the moment he'd known her he'd needed her.

President Bush has had an outstanding Secretary of State in Colin Powell and there are not many people who could replace him, making Condoleezza Rice an excellent choice.