It's Like The Smarter You Are, The

It Wasn't So Much That He Minded Telling Leslie That He Was Afraid To Go; It Was That He Minded Being Afraid. It Was As Though He Had Been Made With A Great Piece Missing - One Of May Belle's Puzzles With This Huge Gap Where Somebody's Eye Should Have Been. Lord, It Would Be Better To Be Born Without An Arm Than To Go Through Life With No Guts.

A Friend Of Mine Who Writes History Books Said To Me That He Thought That The Two Creatures Most To Be Pitied Were The Spider And The Novelist - Their Lives Hanging By A Thread Spun Out Of Their Own Guts. But In Some Ways I Think Writers Of Fiction Are The Creatures Most To Be Envied, Because Who Else Besides The Spider Is Allowed To Take That Fragile Thread And Weave It Into A Pattern? What A Gift Of Grace To Be Able To Take The Chaos From Within And From It To Create Some Semblance Of Order.

Hope ... Is Not A Feeling; It Is Something You Do.

Reading Has Made Such A Profound Difference To My Life. I'm Sure I Became A Writer Because Of The Power Of Literature In My Own Life.

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.