"She sighed once, wishing she had a talent for the details of telling stories. She wasn't bad at themes, she mused, but she could never figure out how to turn a theme into an engaging tale. So she read instead, and admired those who could."

"I admire independence. The world would be a stronger place if we were all capable of handling life on our own. But being capable of it doesn't mean being unable to share and depend on someone else. It shouldn't mean being unwilling to. That's the romance."

"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."

"Know what you want, work to get it, then value it once you have it."

"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."

"If you're looking for the full deal, the till-death deal, then look at me. No one's ever going to love you, stick by you, understand how you work the way I do. (Malcolm Kavanaugh)"

"Knowing isn't always believing."

"Anything worth anything can be found in books."

"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."

"Fictional people are people, too, otherwise why would we care what happens to them?"

"Witches, he thought. Always rhyming."

"It was a mistake to think of houses, old houses, as being empty. They were filled with memories, with the faded echoes of voices. Drops of tears, drops of blood, the ring of laughter, the edge of tempers that had ebbed and flowed between the walls, into the walls, over the years.Wasn't it, after all, a kind of life?And there were houses, he knew it, that breathed. They carried in their wood and stone, their brick and mortar a kind of ego that was nearly, very nearly, human."

"Sex might satisfy, food might fuel, love might sustain, but without coffee, what is the point?"

"He won't be one of those girlishly pretty men with curly gold hair...He'll be dark, dangerous, too. Brave, certainly, but not without flaws. I like my heroes human."

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

"Feeling too much is a hell of a lot better than feeling nothing."

"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."

“As a rule of thumb, I'd say one cliché per [Romance]--and then be damn sure you can make it work. But if you're going to try to write the virginal amnesiac twin disguised as a boy mistaken for the mother (or father depending how well the disguise works) of a secret baby, honey, you better have some serious skills. Or seek therapy.”

"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?"

"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."

"She pressed her mouth to his throat, his shoulder, would have absorbed him into her skin if she'd known a way."

"Everything I know, I learned from dogs."

"She was tough in the best sense of the word. She'd taken blows, the disappointments, and had worked her way through them. Some people, he knew, would have buckled under, found a clutch, or given up. But she had carved a place for herself and made it work."

"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."

"Grab it while you can because tomorrow could suck you dry."

"A bit of sniffles and men are more work than a brood of babies."

"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."