In all honesty, at that time, I never saw myself as an author... I was just a Mom in a state of panic, trying to enter a short story contest to win the prize money in order to keep the lights on in my home.

That has always been it for me: family first.

It was all a back-handed blessing, and my friends were the ones who kept the faith, read my work, and urged me to submit it to publishers (by sending it out for me - they would not hear no for an answer.

In all honesty, at that time, I never saw myself as an author... I was just a Mom in a state of panic, trying to enter a short story contest to win the prize money in order to keep the lights on in my home.

The story grew, got way bigger than the contest rules called for, and next thing I knew I had a book.

I look at life, the experiences I've had, at the human condition, the dynamics between people, the news (world news), and draw from the compelling realities all around us.

I love the paranormal, because there, every genre I write can become one beacon for my imagination.

It is too maddening. I've got to fly off, right now, to some devilish navy yard, three hours in a seasick steamer, and after being heartily sick, I'll have to speak three times, and then I'll be sick coming home. Still, who would not be sick for England?

Sitting at home the way I do, I'd just love the hear from people. It'd be a great help in passing the time.

Most fathers don't see the war within the daughter, her struggles with conflicting images of the idealized and flawed father, her temptation both to retreat to Daddy's lap and protection and to push out of his embrace to that of beau and the world beyond home.

I was stuck at home in bed with me and got more and more involved with the Internet. I used it to keep in contact with friends and to make sure I was up to date with everything that was going on in the world.

I'm going to buy some green bananas because by the time I get home they'll be ripe.

Removing substantial fuel loads from our forests helps prevent catastrophic fire and better protects species, watersheds and neighboring communities that call them home.

I'm looking forward to providing the men of Seattle with an evening where they can kick back, light up a cigar and enjoy a night to themselves. Women, we can't technically keep you out, but please stay at home.

I listen to the phone-ins on the way home and I know how the fans feel.

I'm a 7 o'clock act. My people want to go to a show, a dinner and then go home and go to bed.

The average husband enjoys the total effect of his home but is usually unable to contribute any of the details of work and organisation that make it enjoyable.

To my mind, the most important aspect of the Nobel Awards is that they bring home to the masses of the peoples of all nations, a realization of their common interests. They carry to those who have no direct contact with science the international spirit.

I think a good MP is someone who cares for their community and becomes their champion, which is why I will make my home in any seat I am lucky enough to be selected for. Looks play no part in the equation, what matters is your ideas and connecting them to the electorate.

We in this Congress have a choice. The American people have a right to exercise a choice on this issue, as to whether our men and women will continue to fight and die in a war based on deception and fantasy, or to start bringing the troops home.

American and Israel share a special bond. Our relationship is unique among all nations. Like America, Israel is a strong democracy, a symbol of freedom, and an oasis of liberty, a home to the oppressed and persecuted.

I'd get 3-4 cheap home runs every year. You know, little 'wood shots' down either line. They would be pop flies in any other park. But, goodness me, they didn't count the number of long outs!

Your home should be your home. People shouldn't be allowed to use whatever crazy lenses they use to catch you waking up in the morning.

He went, ever on the move, with the slow, shuffling step of wandering beggars who are nowhere at home.

At home in Paris I take a milk bath two times a week, but here on the road it is more difficult. I miss them.

When I am home for like a two-year stretch, I get antsy, because I want to work.

We need to work together, on a bipartisan basis, to create new jobs, increase job training, enact real and substantive middle class tax relief, and reward companies that create jobs at home.

And when you see it the first time you put the film together, the roughest cut, is when you want to go home and open up your veins and get in a warm tub and just go away. And then it gradually, maybe, works its way back, somewhere toward that spot you were at before.

You should never meet your heroes. Paul Newman... I was so excited about meeting him, but he turned up in shell suit bottoms, slippers, and a jumper. He was just so worn out and old, he wanted to go home.

You have to understand the tone of the movie, because if it's supposed to be funny, it can be funny violent like the Home Alone stuff, but you have to really understand the tone of what you're doing and make the action work for that and for the character.

The mare set off for home with the speed of a swallow, and going as smoothly and silently. I never had dreamed of such a motion, fluent and graceful, and ambient, soft as the breeze flitting over the flowers, but swift as the summer lightening.

I hate leaving home. I love what I do, but I'd love to go home every night.

I think it's time to do clean-up for a generation. I believe this is one of the movies that hits home for all colors and all races. Everybody I talk to, black or white, suburban, rich or poor, can relate to rejection, can relate to not having a father or a mother.

To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition, the end to which every enterprise and labor tends, and of which every desire prompts the prosecution.

When our boys come home from France, we will have the hags flung out.

I think a major element of jetlag is psychological. Nobody ever tells me what time it is at home.

So, my sweetheart back home writes to me and wants to know what this gal in Bombay's got that she hasn't got. So I just write back to her and says, Nothin', honey. Only she's got it here.

Life with a scientist who is often changing jobs and is frequently away at meetings and on lecture tours is not easy. Without a secure home base, I could not have made much progress.

If the many allegations made to this date are true, then the burglars who broke into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate were, in effect, breaking into the home of every citizen.

Of the seven experiments, the ones that have been most investigated so far have been the pets. The dogs who know when their masters for coming home, and the sense of being stared at.

I'm like an old dog, I hate to be run off from home.

Fiction was invented the day Jonas arrived home and told his wife that he was three days late because he had been swallowed by a whale.

I find myself dreaming of doing normal things - like staying home and washing dishes.

Then in my early teens, when the home computer bubble was blowing, I had one of the first, an Acorn Atom, and used to write primitive adventures on that.

Never make your home in a place. Make a home for yourself inside your own head. You'll find what you need to furnish it - memory, friends you can trust, love of learning, and other such things. That way it will go with you wherever you journey.

My hunch is that probably men are doing more both outside the home and inside the home.

I'm going to go down swinging... I'm sure as heck not going to go home and say I had a bad tournament.

Prepare for death, if here at night you roam, and sign your will before you sup from home.

A home without books is a body without soul.