"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."

"Anyone who said money didn't matter had never had to count the coins that fell between the cushions of the couch."

"A marriage is a delicate thing, Maggie, a balance of two hearts and two hopes. Sometimes the weight's just too heavy on the one side, and the other can't lift to it."

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

"Remind me not to piss you off Red. You might aim for the heart and shoot me in the balls."

"People in hell want snowcones."

"Planting a flower's like opening a book, because either way you're starting something. And your garden's your library."

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

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

"I wouldn't waste a day, not an hour, not a moment. Take what you want and damn caution. Live, enjoy. Feed ravenously. Or the biggest regret you'll have at the end of your life is wasted time."

"Some people expect things to fall into their lap. Oh, they might work a bit for it. I'll just shake this tree, and if I shake it long enough that pretty red apple will plop right into my hand. Never occurs to them that they might have to climb the damn tree, fall out a couple times, get some scrapes and bruises before they get to that apple. Because if the apple's worth wanting, it's worth risking a broken neck."

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

"Fate. You could never anticipate it."

"Well, I'd have more zing with George Clooney and Harrison Ford in a threesome, but neither of us are going to get that wish."

"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)"

"Excuse me? Tonight you represent every dateless woman in this city, every woman who's about to sit down to a lonely meal of Weight Watchers past primavera she's just nuked in the microwave. Every woman who will get into bed tonight with a book or reruns of Sex and the City as her only companion. You are our shining hope....But no pressure."

"Not everyone who loves music can play the tune."

"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."

"The story was told, generation by generation, in song and in story, until time misted it into myth and legend. But some believed, as legends brought comfort."

"Courage comes in different forms. There's strength--that's the muscle. But love's the heart. When you put them together, you can do anything."

"A woman with romance in her life lived as grandly as a queen, because her heart was treasured."

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

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