"He hated this feeling of free-floating, just drifting from place to place, thought to thought, without any sense of anchor or root."

"When you swallow that pride, Eve, take care you don't choke on it."

"But when two people feel something, they ought to respect that enough to figure it out."

"He wanted to be a poet,' someone else put in while Maggie hugged Tim and patted his back. 'Said he'd only lacked the words to be one."

"Everything I know, I learned from dogs."

"Every single book is a challenge."

"Evil cannot and will not be vanquished by evil. Dark will only swallow dark and deepen. The good and the light are the keenest weapons."

"I don't think you can write - at least not well - if you don't love stories, love the written word."

"Words have magic. Spells and curses. Some of them, the best of them, once said change everything."

"I don't base any character on a real person, and really don't do composites either. I make them up."

"Some people get lifetimes, some get moments. I've got to tell myself it's what you do with what you get that counts."

"For over a year I continued to submit mss, and have them rejected - the last few with rejection letters indicated the story was pretty good, but I was American."

"I don't fiddle or edit or change while I'm going through that first draft."

"Don't turn your back on your own happiness just to hug your pride."

"The tune was sad, as the best of Ireland was, melancholy and lovely as a lover's tears."

"I know what it is to be pushed in a direction you don't want to go, or one you're not ready for. People say they know what's best for you. Maybe sometimes it's true. But it doesn't matter if they keep pushing until they take your choices away."

"If you write in category, you write knowing there's a framework, there are reader expectations."

"Creative is my god. Technology my cherished lover."

"Actually, I find it great fun to develop family series with lots of characters."

"That woman doesn't have the sense God gave a retarded flea."

"Fate. You could never anticipate it."

"Parker: She believed, absolutely, that each person, each heart, had a counterpart-had a mate. A rightness. She'd always believed it, and understood that unshakable belief was a reason she was good at what she did."

"When you find somebody you love, all the way through, and she loves you-even with your weaknesses, your flaws, everything starts to click into place. And if you can talk to her, and she listens, if she makes you laugh, and makes you think, makes you want, makes you see who you really are, and who you are is better, just better with her, you'd be crazy not to want to spend the rest of your life with her. (Carter Maguire)"

"I can't believe what a state I got myself into over this. Everyone was right. They said it would just happen, and it did. I guess the best things do."

"My own sense of family, where I came from and what I made for myself is an important part of my life."

"Certainly the plagiarism, and dealing with the fallout of it, was the most difficult thing I've ever faced since I started writing."

"And each book has to receive your best effort every single time. No slacking."

"I loved the process of writing."

"I do indeed write on the road. My laptop goes with me everywhere."

"In the summer of '80, Silhouette bought my first book."