You can’t change where you came from, but you can change where you go from here.

Sometimes you weren’t supposed to share pain. Sometimes it was best just to deal with it alone.

All my life I’ve chased dreams of what could be. For the first time in my life, I’ve actually caught one.

Who I am, what I am, is the culmination of a lifetime of reading, a lifetime of stories. And there are still so many more books to read. I’m a work in progress.

Motherhood is hard enough without judgement from others who don’t know the whole story.

The word lethologica describes the state of not being able to remember the word you want.

I think my characters are more wish fulfillments than they are mirrors. They see things I don’t and live in a world I can only enter through words.

You’d be surprised how easy some things can be, things you never thought you’d do, when you take self-respect out of the equation.

…everyone knows that road, the one leading out of town into a deep green expanse of pastures and old farmhouses, which at first makes it seem like you’re entering a fairy tale, something sweet and old fashioned and lost in time. But, like all fairy tales, the beginning is always beautiful, a ruse to draw...

It had always fascinated him that she’d consumed so many words, that her head was full of stories, told a thousand different ways.

My favorite books are the ones that make me smile for hours after reading them. I want that for my readers, for the sweetness to linger. Sort of like chocolate, but without the calories.

Life is about experience… You can’t hold on to everything

To this day she could make tap water boil just by kissing him.

I’m a huge fan of Alice Hoffman, Fred Chappell and Susan Elizabeth Phillips.

Happiness is a risk. If you’re not a little scared, then you’re not doing it right.

But she stopped herself. That wouldn’t make it right. You didn’t forgive because it was the only choice you thought you had. That didn’t make it forgiveness, that made it desperation. She’d always been too desperate about Jake. Always.

It looked like the world was covered in a cobbler crust of brown sugar and cinnamon.

Once he’d asked, “Don’t you want to read? There are hundreds of books in the sitting room.”She had laughed and said, “I’ve read them all. I want to remember them the way they were. If I read them now, the endings will have changed.

There’s an old hymn called ‘How Can I Keep from Singing?’ That’s what writing feels like to me. I have to write. It’s intrinsic to who I am. So it was a natural choice for me to try to pursue writing as a career. Truthfully, though, I still daydream about how fun it would be...

It was like the way you wanted sunshine on Saturdays, or pancakes for breakfast. They just made you feel good.

There was an art to the male posterior. That’s all there was to it.

I’m a classic stress-eater, so I know a lot about how eating can become a way of hiding from what’s really wrong. I escape into food. But some people escape into books. Some into relationships that might not be good for them. The three main characters in ‘The Sugar Queen’ struggle with each of these...

I needed to stop being what everyone thought I was.

He stared up at the moon, which looked like a giant hole in the sky, letting light through to the other side.

I was just telling Claire about a guy I met in bread class. I hate him, but he could be my soul mate.

But he’d loved only Eby. You didn’t need a mirror to tell you that you were beautiful when you had proof like that.

Magical realism is a blending of the unusual or supernatural into an otherwise ordinary setting. And, to me, this perfectly describes the South. ‘The Sugar Queen’ involves a lot of magical happenings, but in a very down-home Southern setting. It’s full of things that could almost be true.

When Josey woke up and saw the feathery frost on her windowpane, she smiled. Finally, it was cold enough to wear long coats and tights. It was cold enough for scarves and shirts worn in layers, like camouflage. It was cold enough for her lucky red cardigan, which she swore had a power of its...

I think Heaven will be like a first kiss.

It was a remarkable realization to Eby, that we are what we’re taught. That was why the Morris women were what they were. It was because they knew no different.

Why were girls in such a hurry to grow up? Agatha would never understand. Childhood was magical. Leaving it behind was a magnificent loss.

Fate never promises to tell you everything up front. You aren’t always shown the path in life you’re supposed to take. But if there was one thing she’d learned in the past few weeks, it was that sometimes, when you’re really lucky, you meet someone with a map.

Sometimes it’s difficult to tell what side of the moral compass we are all on. There are so many things to factor in.

On the day the tree bloomed in the fall, when its white apple blossoms fell and covered the ground like snow, it was tradition for the Waverleys to gather in the garden like survivors of some great catastrophe, hugging one another, laughing as they touched faces and arms, making sure they were all okay, grateful...

For stubborn souls like Lisette, death was easier than the courage it took to actually change your life.

At any given time I’m listening to the Cory Branan, Leonna Naess, Eve 6, the King’s Noyse, Sean Paul, Green Day, the BoDeans, Buddy Holly, Nowell Sing We Clear… the list goes on and on. But I rarely listen to music while I write. I start typing the lyrics.

When you have to do something, you have to do it. Putting it off only makes it worse. Believe me, I know.

Every life needs a little space. It leaves room for good things to enter it.

Love always hurts. That’s one thing I know you know. But it’s worth it. That’s what you don’t know. Yet.

He claimed the waters must have, indeed, been healing, because look how hard his journey was on him to get there, and how easy it was on him to get home.

Stability was overrated. Crises and adventures, on the other hand, could actually teach you something.

Whenever I would get too nosy as a child, my grandmother would say, “When you learn someone else’s secret, your own secrets aren’t safe. Dig up one, release them all.

Some of Bay’s fondest memories were of lying under the apple tree in the summer while Claire gardened and the apple tree tossed apples at her like a dog trying to coax its owner into playing catch.

You can’t change where you come from, but you can change where you go from here. Just like a book. If you don’t like the ending, you can make up a new one.

My writing process is very organic. I start with an idea. I have the general story arc and the cast. But then I sit down to write, and things change.

Summer was a lady who didn’t give up her spotlight easily.

If anyone had been paying attention to the signs, they would have realized that air turns white when things are about to change, that paper cuts mean there’s more to what’s written on the page than meets the eye, and that birds are always out to protect you from things you don’t see.

The air around her was cool lately, as if she were creating a vacuum with her unhappiness.

He fell in love with a skinny stray cat that would skulk around the dining hall during meals. Every day, Jake would offer it sausage or egg from breakfast and pepperoni or hamburger from lunch. Every day, it ran away from him. But Jake didn’t give up. Even when he had the stomach flu, he...

Candy is my religion.