I'm a morning person: if I don't get up, put the coffee on and get to my desk by 8, the day has already lost a lot of its promise.

I want to say that, in general, when it works, open adoption is great.

History releases me from my own experience and jogs my fictional imagination.

It would be a lie to say that people are coming to adoption with joy at all times. Hope, perhaps, but it would be disingenuous to say that every part coming to an adoption isn't seriously grieving.

I feel like if writers used writing as therapy we'd have a ton of happy writers.

I think that when the world feels safe and secure, we probably feel more that way in our personal lives. What goes on in the world affects us, unequivocally.

The past always sort of haunts us and perhaps inspires us in some ways.

The birth mother is placing the baby out of love. I still believe that. Well, the ones weve dealt with who were actually pregnant, anyway.

As writers, we don't just need to write about poverty or war or the immigrant experience.

I feel sometimes like a book tour is a slow series of humiliations and that if you're strong you'll come out of it OK.

I find I have to touch what I am working on every day, or a deep-seated dread kicks in that is very hard to overcome.

fiction is necessary to life - not only as books but as dreams, dreams that frame the world and give it meaning.

You have the strength to survive any situation.

Just because you have stolen someone's heart, luckily owned and occupied as a home, doesn't give you the audacity to enforce hurtful policies.

Rivers and rocks and trees have always been talking to us but we've forgotten how to listen.

The challenge today is to convince people of the value of truth, honesty, compassion and a concern for others.

When I step into the kitchen in the morning, I go for the scrambled eggs with pine nuts and minced lamb. When I finish at night, it is hard to resist the burger.

Actions from youth, advice from the middle-aged, prayers from the aged.

That was it! The whole Redwood City philosophy was based on a willingness to try harder than anyone else.

An epicure is one who gets nothing better than the cream of everything but cheerfully makes the best of it.

Without labor there is no rest, nor without fighting can the victory be won.