ALICE SEBOLD

In my 20s, I railed against anything 'spiritual'; I thought it was all crap.

To me, the idea of heaven would give you certain pleasures, certain joys - but it's very important to have an intellectual understanding of why you want those things.

I think understanding is the way to gain perspective - and therefore can live among those hideous realities. You can live with them.

I have never been shy about listening to the input of others and weighing it seriously.

I find talking about my work harder than it might be if honesty wasn't my calling card.

It's hard, because when you talk about process or your characters ruling your narrative, it sounds like you have no control, but obviously you're ultimately the author, so you do have control.

I'm gradually working through my obsessions, and maybe, when they're all free and clear, I'll write a comedy. But I'm not there yet.

I don't think ignorance is a way that you gain distance on something.

I think it's an interesting thing to me, because we have this desire for everything to be explained to us. But if you go through your daily actions, very little ends up having a written-down explanation for why things happen, or why people do specific things.

I wake up very early in the morning. I like to start in the dark, and I never work at night, because my brain is evaporated by 4 P.M.

I have always felt extremely weird. But I am very happy with my weirdnesses, and I want other people to be very happy with theirs.

I'd like to go back to poetry again. I really, really revere good poetry. It's been my private discipline.

The relationship with the words someone uses is more intimate and integrated than just a quick read and a blurb can ever be. This intimacy - the words on the page being sent back and forth from engaged editor to open author - is unique in my experience.

I went to church irregularly and was mostly reading comics in the pew.

Depending on where I am in the process, sometimes I have a page count and sometimes I don't. Sometimes I have an hour count; sometimes I'm just happy to string a few words together. I do keep pretty rigorous hours, because otherwise you never get anything done.

I was motivated to write about violence because I believe it's not unusual. I see it as just a part of life, and I think we get in trouble when we separate people who've experienced it from those who haven't.

I wanted to be a novelist for so long.

I think you only learn what kind of personality you have by committing to things.

I always had that sense of being censored for the things that I thought. Why is it wrong to embroider your pants, or paint with acrylics on your clothing? Why is that weird? Isn't it weirder to want to be like everyone else?

I wanted to be the moron of the family, because morons seemed to have more fun, more freedom and more personality.

We all work hard to understand the dynamic relationship we have with a parent.

For me, heaven would be a lack of alienation. The whole time I was growing up, I felt comfort was inherently evil. I think that, for me, heaven isn't about couches and milk shakes and never having a troubling thought again.

I like gardening - it's a place where I find myself when I need to lose myself.

As she brought prospective buyers through, the realtor said it was an oil stain, but it was me, seeping out of the bag.

So there are cakes and pillows and colors galore, but underneath this more obvious patchwork quilt are places like a quiet room where you can go and hold someone's hand and not have to say anything.