I write to find out what I am thinking. I write to find out who I am. I write to understand things.

There is no end to what can be said about the world

The elasticity of imagination and compassion is what writing and reading promote.

Schools provide safe spaces to talk about controversial issues, and literature presents characters portraying human experience in all its richness and contradictoriness.

Every writer can tell you that a book is only truly alive when it finds passionate readers who bring it alive in their imaginations.

I admit that for me love goes deeper than the struggle, or maybe what I mean is, love is the deeper struggle.

Everyone needs a strong sense of self. It is our base of operations for everything that we do in life.

A book does not discriminate against any reader. All are welcome at the table of literature.

Don't plan it all. Let life surprise you a little.

A novel is not, after all, a historical document, but a way to travel through the human heart.

Each of us will have to make the choices that allow us to be the largest versions of ourselves.

The point is not to pay back kindness but to pass it on.

Normally I start with a plot, and write a synopsis, and the ideas come from the construction.

When I finish a book, I'm so exhausted that I'm sort of letting myself think that this could be the end.

You get spoiled as a novelist because you get to be the director and the editor, and you play all the parts, but as a screenwriter, you are a bit down the ladder.

What we humans think we know is nothing compared to what we need to believe to numb the fear and pain.

When you're an established name, you know that a children's book will have a pretty good chance of getting picked up. Like Madonna. It's not that I had this great idea. Actually, in my case, it was a great idea.

Everyone has a need to do penance. It's a basic need, like washing. It's about harmony, an absolutely essential inner balance. It's the balance we call morality.

Good police officers are ugly.