Now here’s a good one: you’re lying on your deathbed. You have one hour to live. Who is it, exactly, you have needed all these years to forgive?
I’ve seen enough successful writers who no longer seem to care when they are recognized with an award, and I think that’s just tragic.
A good novel is a good novel, pointe finale. And I think what I’m writing is exactly that.
To be honest, the only thing I ever really wanted to be was a writer – since I read ‘Charlotte’s Web’ as a child.
Foolish people are never harmless. Stupidity accounts for as many crimes as anger and greed.
How much more courage it took to be kind than to be cruel.
Winning doesn’t mean my book is better than anyone else’s. It means I’m very fortunate. And I should be very, very aware of that. And grateful.
A good journalist, as you know, is a great listener. And so’s a good writer. And I got to listen to people for almost 20 years. That serves me well, I hope, when I try to understand how a character might be feeling, or how they might react.
I had to learn compassion. Had to learn what it felt like to hate, and to forgive and to love and be loved. And to lose people close to me. Had to feel deep loneliness and sorrow. And then I could write.
A journalist also needs to be disciplined, and so do I. I am, essentially, lazy. Without discipline I’d be just a mass of gummy bears on the sofa instead of on book tour with my eighth novel.
But, like peace, comfort didn’t come from hiding away or running away. Comfort first demanded courage.
It’s a shame that creativity and sloth look exactly the same.
What are you afraid of? I’m afraid of not recognizing Paradise.
Better to accept the wretched truth than struggle, twisting to make a wish a reality.
I was tired of seeing the Graces always depicted as beautiful young things. I think wisdom comes with age and life and pain. And knowing what matters.
Aid workers, when handing out food to starving people, quickly learn that the people fighting for it at the front are the people who need it least. It’s the people sitting quietly at the back, too weak to fight, who need it the most. And so too with tragedy.
The women in the room chatted about love, about childhood, about losing parents, about Mr. Spock, about good books they’d read. They mothered each other.
What did falling in love do for you? Can you ever really explain it? It filled empty spaces I never knew were empty. It cured a loneliness I never knew I had. It gave me joy. And freedom. I think that was the most amazing part. I suddenly felt both embraced and freed at the same time.
Few things are better in the world than a room full of librarians. I consider them literary heroes. The keepers and defenders of the written word.
In winter the very ground seemed to reach up and grab the elderly, yanking them to earth as though hungry for them.
Every year the hunters shot cows and horses and family pets and each other. And unbelievably, they sometimes shot themselves, perhaps in a psychotic episode where they mistook themselves for dinner.