"I'd always loved to read - and come from a family of readers - but I never thought about writing as a career."

"There's no reward without work, no victory without effort, no battle won without risk."

"Do you know how many ways love can hit you? So it makes you happy, or miserable? It makes you sick in the belly or hurt in the heart. It makes everything brighter and sharper, or it blurs all the edges. It makes you feel like a king or a fool. Every way love can hit you, it's hit me when it comes to you."

"Are you telling me you're cooking me dinner?- Regan Its the quickest way, without physical contact, to get a woman into bed. The kitchen through there?"

"The most important aspect of any story, to me, is character."

"If you don't go after what you want, you'll never have it. If you don't ask, the answer is always no. If you don't step forward, you're always in the same place."

"I would hope that my writing's cleaner than it was when I started."

"Niall: We're tossed by the winds of fate. Once we end where they blow us, we make of ourselves that we will."

"I believe strongly in writing groups such as Romance Writers Of America that offer support, information and networking."

"Mary Stewart will always be my goddess. I can pick up one of her early books - one I've read a dozen times - and still slide right into the story."

"A relationship isn't something that has to be created in a day or perfected in a day. Part of the game is to keep working on it. It's something that'll always be just a little flawed."

"Bright light. You've always found your way."

"Survivors lived with their mistakes."

"I find I use the Internet more and more. It's just an invaluable tool. I do most of my research on the Net now - and certainly do the bulk of my communicating through email."

"Who I am now is who I was before. The three years between, they were the aberration. You wouldn't recognize the person I became during that lost time. I barely do."

"Aren't most romance heros, or heros in fiction of any kind, generally superior to real men? Same goes for heroines and real women."

"I generally write a first draft that's pretty lean. Just get the story down."

"You don't find time to write. You make time. It's my job."

"Do you see that out there? The strange, unfamiliar light? It's called the sun. Let's go get us a little."

"I don't believe for one moment you can write well what you wouldn't read for pleasure."

"You walked in, and the air changed. It gives you an advantage and you're enough of a challenge. I'm not trying to be a challenge. It's one of the things that makes you one."

"New York had saved him, in a very real way. It had pushed and prodded him with its impatient and sharp fingers, reminding him on a daily basis during that jittery first year that it didn't really give a goddamn whether he sank or swam. He liked its selfishness and its generosity and its propensity for flipping the bird to the rest of the world."

"To fate and the strange way that it twists us all together."

"Writing had never become routine for him, but remained a constant surprise. He was always surprised at how much fun it was, once it all got moving. And never failed to be surprised at how bloody hard it was. It was like having an intense, frustrating love affair with a capricious, gorgeous, and often mean-spirited woman.He loved every moment of it."

"Love wasn't the soft, silky words the poets spoke of. Love,with it's twin edges, was the one factor that weakened so many women, that pushed them to compromised their own wants, their own needs for the needs and wants of another."

"I read a lot - and I read a variety of genres."

"You can't edit a blank page."

"Roz to Amelia (the house ghost): How considerate of you, after trying to kill me, to see that I don't catch a cold."

"Action, reaction, motivation, emotion, all have to come from the characters. Writing a love scene requires the same elements from the writer as any other."

"Everyone needs a woman who'll listen, take your side, tell the truth - or not, as you need it. A woman you can count on, no matter what, and who'll love you no matter how much you screw up."

"Brother, when beauty falls into your hand, you hold on to it while you can. You could be dead tomorrow.Well, that's... inspiring."

"You don't fix a man the way you do a fault in a pipe or a leak in a roof. You take him as he is, Mary Brenna, or you don't take him at all...adjustments can't be all made on one side, darling, else the balance goes off and what's being built just falls down."

"Love and magic have a great deal in common. They enrich the soul, delight the heart. And they both take practice."

"Be yourself. Be true to that, to your heart. Patience. See what happens if you step back instead of bounding forward."

"Love runs the engine."

"Knowing isn't always believing."

"It was a well-aimed arrow. Had anyone even noticed she was no longer at the library? All the people she'd worked with, worked for? All the patrons she'd helped? Had she been so replaceable that her absence hadn't caused a single ripple?Hadn't she mattered at all?"

"Love spells are nothing but wives' tales. You can't play magic inside the heart, for it's more powerful than any spell. Lust you can order up with a wink, desire with a smile. But love is love, and there is nothing can touch it."

"Every writer has to figure out what works best - and often has to select and discard different tools before they find the one that fits."

"Magic exists. Who can doubt it, when there are rainbows and wildflowers, the music of the wind and the silence of the stars? Anyone who has loved has been touched by magic. It is such a simple and such an extraordinary part of the lives we live."

"I'm going to treat myself to one of these as a reward for not knocking himself unconscious with a skillet."

"Witches, he thought. Always rhyming."

"Men didn't respect beauty...they used it."

"Shall I tell you what rock and roll is, Johnno, from someone who doesn't perform, but observes? It's restless and rude. It's defiant and daring. It's a fist shaken at age. It's a voice that often screams out questions because the answers are always changing. The very young play it because they're searching for some way to express their anger or joy, their confusion and their dreams. Once in a while, and only once in a while, someone comes along who truly understands, who has the gift to transfer all those needs and emotions into music."

"I am what I am and I can't change it. I know how to cope and how to get by. I don't want or expect anyone to stand with me. I don't need anyone to. I've learned to accept my life just the way it is, and I don't give a damn if you or anyone else doesn't."

"I've gotten to know a number of readers from being online, and really treasure the time I've spent with them."

"Why do we go to all this trouble' Parker asked. 'Men don't notice anyway.''Because what we wear affects how we feel, how we act, how we move. And that they do notice. Especially the move. Get dressed, smoke the eyes. You'll know you look good so you'll feel good. You'll have a better time."

"I decided to write category romance as I'd recently discovered them, and enjoyed them."

"I go to Ireland. Walk along an empty beach. When I do, I think of all the people who have walked there before, and will walk there again. Then it occurs to me nothing is forever. No matter how bad or how good, everything passes and moves on to another level."

"Anyone that has character leaves a mark on another. Would you like to leave the world without making a ripple?"