Death Is Very Mysterious To Us. One

Words Are Humanity's Greatest Natural Resource, But Most Of Us Have Trouble Figuring Out How To Put Them Together. Words Aren't Cheap. They Are Very Precious. They Are Like Water, Which Gives Life And Growth And Refreshment, But Because It Has Always Been Abundant, We Treat It Cheaply. We Waste It; We Pollute It, And Doctor It. Later We Blame The Quality Of The Water Because We Have Misused It.

Still, I Kept Writing. I Had No Guarantee That I Would Someday Win Awards For Writing. Heavens, The Only Person During That Time Who Seemed To Think I Could Write Something Worth Publishing Was My Loyal Husband. But I Always Remembered The Professor From Graduate School Who Urged Me To Write And Who Recommended Me For That First Writing Assignment In 1964. When I Protested To Sara Little That I Didn't Want To Add Another Mediocre Writer To The World, She Gently Reminded Me That If I Didn't Dare Mediocrity, I Would Never Write Anything At All.

The Work Reveals The Creator - And As Our Universe In Its Vastness, Its Orderliness, Its Exquisite Detail, Tells Us Something Of The One Who Made It, So A Work Of Fiction, For Better Or Worse, Will Reveal The Writer.

It's Like The Smarter You Are, The More Things Can Scare You.

It's Such A Thrill When An Adult Comes Up To Me And Says, 'i Read Your Book As A Child And Really Loved It.' That's A Tremendous Compliment.