I decided to write short stories because they got rejected quicker.

I get letters from readers who say that they have always hated reading, but somebody suggested one of my books, they actually finished the book and enjoyed it, and they're going on to read another book. I'm thrilled that they have figured out that reading is fun.

I wrote eight full-length adult novels in my twenties. None of them were published.

I decided to write short stories because they got rejected quicker.

I love all of it, thinking up the plots, getting to know the kids in the story, their parents, backyards, pizza toppings.

Actually my first eight books were historical novels, but they were never published.

I believe my readers are crazy about their parents and want to be just like them when they grow up.

I approach serious subjects, and I like to have the good guys win and have the parents among the good guys.

I'm one of the lucky writers: plots come easily to me.

If you write a story based on a real person, you're trapped by the details of the real person and his life. It gets in the way of writing your own story.

My favorite book is always the one I'm working on at the moment.

I love writing and do not know why it is considered such a difficult, agonizing profession.

People nearly always believe, and are willing to back it up with weapons and cruelty, that their religion and way of life is better than the other person's.

I believe my voice is pretty much the same. I've written 75 books, so I'm better at it now than I was earlier in my career.

It is actually the neuroscientists and evolutionists who do the best job of explaining the reasons behind the most unreasonable behavior.

People who look at Greek statues never say it's a shame because they're not complete.

Let's not interfere with justice... Let's let justice speak.

Places are extremely important when writing a long story because place shapes a character.

I would point out that I'm an actress for a reason! If I were popular in high school, I would have considered another career because I wouldn't have been alone in my room, making up other characters for myself. I definitely had growing pains. The popular kids didn't want anything to do with the girl who was starting the drama club.

My general rule is that if everyone knew how to cook fresh produce from their local area, and Monday to Thursday within 20 minutes, you know, there's millions of recipes out there to be had.

Don't wait for a time when you're free of fear. Feel the fear and do it anyway.

I do my own analysis on the teams I am refereeing. I will know some of the personalities, the players who could be difficult customers in a scrum situation, the ones I am going to have to really work hard on early in the game to get what I want.

If there's too much of you around, people can get tired of you.

When it comes to human dignity, we cannot make compromises.

Tim sends me a fairly ambitious workup in notebook form noting the passages we're going to cover and the chronology of the biblical events, and his commentaries on those things he's read and written.

A white-boy attitude is 'I must exclude, denigrate, and leave behind.' They don't see it or think about it. It's a culture.

I know but one freedom and that is the freedom of the mind.

I remember that, at an early age, I spent many months making a three-masted sailing boat with rigging in a half-walnut shell.

We shouldn't be put out to pasture just because we've reached somebody's idea of retirement, which was certainly happening in Australia, and I think elsewhere as well.

Im really old fashioned. An Epsom salt bath thats genuinely better than any massage.

If I had a comfort blanket, I wouldn't have been as passionate and driven.

Be brave enough to choose yourself even when others don't.

I have more suits than days of the year that I get to wear them.

No matter how grouchy you’re feeling, you’ll find the smile more or less healing. It grows in a wreath all around the front teeth—Thus preserving the face from congealing.

A mothers love is like a fortress And we seek protection there When the waves of tribulation Seem to drown us in despair.

I been getting good crowds. It only took 50 years.

People don't realize that the Obama Administration has been, if anything, harder on whistleblowers than the Bush Administration. Part of the reason is that they know that the response will be more muted because the traditional constituency supporting whistleblowers just happen to be the same constituency as Obama's.

I'll never believe I'm any older than 18. I get angry when my body can't do what an 18-year-old's does. And looking in the mirror is really a tragic sight. There are many consolations to getting older, but physically, it's quite unkind. I find that I have as much mobility, but it takes longer to get pretty.