I feel that if I establish the world or the premise from the first line, then I can get the reader to come with me where I want her to go.

I'd say that most of life seems to me to be that way, a mixture of the mundane and the mythic, when you're living the life of the mind.

I don't see the direct correlation between my personal life and the novel I'm writing until I'm at the end of the novel or very close to it.

It's amazing what you can accomplish when you know you have to hit the ground running.

As writers, we live very much in our own minds much of the time, buzzing in our unconscious spaces as we go about the business of living in the world.

When a certain show or film or celebrity captures the imagination of the masses that has a good deal to say about us, I think, and what is happening in our collective psyche.

I could have a lot of fun with Michael Jackson, I'm sure.

As I get older, I'm finding that I recognize certain celebrities only because they frequently grace the pages of US Weekly, but beyond that, I have no idea what they do.

I'm a pop culture junkie. I'm a People magazine reader, an US Weekly subscriber; all of those celebrity magazines get my dollar.

As a reader I gravitate toward work that rests in the gray area, that doesn't come with easy answers.

I've realized that with each novel I seem to set out a kind of puzzle for myself. And I am never sure in the process of writing a first draft how it's all going to turn out.

With gorilla gone, will there be hope for man?

Life in itself has no meaning. Life is an opportunity to create meaning.

Prayer is the wing wherewith the soul flies to heaven, and meditation the eye wherewith we see God.

Einstein explained his theory to me every day, and on my arrival I was fully convinced that he understood it.

That old question about whether, as a woman, you can be funny and attractive at the same time. Argh! I hate that question. Of course you can.

We have retained the forms and phrases of a republic, but in reality we are living under an oligarchy, not of courtesan, but of bureaucrats.

Love will not be constrain'd by mastery. When mast'ry comes, the god of love anon Beateth his wings, and, farewell, he is gone. Love is a thing as any spirit free.

Science always uses metaphor.

Real beauty comes from confidence and being who you are, not aspiring to look or be someone else.

When we have learned to offer up every duty connected with our situation in life as a sacrifice to God, a settled employment becomes just a settled habit of prayer.