I did not have a chance to write novels until my youngest child started school fulltime

I wouldn't encourage new writers to start off publishing through electronic media... it still isn't wide enough for the readership they would need to get a good start

I have a shelf of comfort books, which I read when the world closes in on me or something untoward happens

But I will say that living in Ireland has changed the cadence and fullness of speech, since the Irish love words and use as many of them in a sentence as possible

Make no judgments where you have no compassion.

I think the Internet, particularly the availability of information, is great. I do a lot of correspondence on-line and have a chat line to talk to my fans as well

I think writers need windows on a view to remind them that a whole world is out there, not the minutiae with which they might be dealing on a close scale

How much can a dragon carry? As much as it thinks it can

What I used to do between writing fits was feed my kids, ride my horse and go shopping for cat and dog food.

Living is struggling to do something impossible; To succeed or die, knowing that you had tried.

The thing is, emotion - if it's visibly felt by the writer - will go through all the processes it takes to publish a story and still hit the reader right in the gut. But you have to really mean it.

Barnby always dismissed the idea of intelligence in a woman as no more than a characteristic to be endured.

And read… read all the time… read as a matter of principle, as a matter of self-respect. Read as a nourishing staple of life.

What the hell difference does it make left or right? There were good men lost on both sides.

When I started the Imagination Library in my hometown, I never dreamed that one day we would be helping Scottish kids.

Our children are our sequels. Our parents are our prequels. All living beings are our equals.

Scattered wits take a long time in picking up.

La solitude re tablit aussi bien les harmonies du corps que celles de l'a" me. Solitude restores the harmonies of the body no less than those of the soul.

You know what really offers you satisfaction? Offering others what you have to give.

This rising global humanism is, in fact, the rising into consciousness of a tribal god similar to the kind of tribal god that functioned in these pre-Hellenic societies.

If I can hear it I can kind of play it. I guess that's how I write, just how something feels.