I have no special talent, you know. I never took a writing course before I began to write.

Anyone who has problems, or worries, anyone who laughs and cries, anyone who feels can write. It's only talking on paper... talking about the things that matter to us.

I loved teaching. It was my world. I only left because I was overwhelmed with three careers - teaching, writing, and my family.

Revision is the heart of writing. Every page I do is done over seven or eight times.

To me, family is everything. I want children to realize how important their families are and what a support system a family is.

Everything in my life affects my writing. There are no separate parts of my life.

Many times in my life I've been upset about something and said to myself, "Will this matter in two years?" Not even in two months.

I myself was terrified during the Second World War. The war started when I was six, and I was so sure that we were going to be bombed and killed. My imagination is my biggest plus and my worst minus.

Outside of family, writing is essential. To me, it's like breathing.

I cannot outline. I do not know what the next thing is going to happen in the book until it comes out of my fingers.

All of my books are based in some way on my personal experiences, or the experiences of members of my family, or the stories kids would tell me in school.

The vampire community has enough problems. We don't need to add petty backbiting to it.

So I took her hand, and I don't know what everybody else heard, but to me it sounded like a slow dance: a little sad, but maybe a little hopeful, too.

When in Turkey, do as the turkeys do.

The innovator is not an opponent of the old; he is a proponent of the new.

We may, perhaps, imagine that the creation was finished long ago. But that would be quite wrong. It continues still more magnificently, and at the highest levels of the world.

George Harrison was known as the quiet Beatle. Quiet people are often quiet because they are deep thinkers.

Faith is not the opposite of reason.

It's a funny time, but I'm sure in any time you live in, you'd consider it funny because life is change and it'll just keep doing that. It's a matter of embracing it or not.

We can afford to lose money - even a lot of money. But we can't afford to lose reputation - even a shred of reputation.

Then he gave her a kiss on the forehead that felt like a baptism and she wept like a baby.