Without music, life is a journey through a desert.

Every industry is going to be affected (by the aging population). This creates tremendous opportunities and tremendous challenges.

I loved my parents... but that can never change the fact that my father's violence ruined my childhood.

I meet kids now who become novelists, poets, write for the theater and movies, who were simply inspired by what they saw during the Spoleto Festival.

I only hope to do well enough before I die to have a house as big as my rich Uncle Ed and Aunt Carole.

I still write in long hand. I type like a chimpanzee.

I think I learned about the relationship between books and life from Margaret Mitchell.

I've never cackled with laughter at a single line I've ever written. None of it has given me pleasure.

My father wouldn't let me take typing in childhood.

When I was 5 years old, my mother read me 'Gone With The Wind' at night, before I went to bed. I remember her reading almost all year.

Writing has never been that simple for me.

I never read my reviews... not even the good ones. Barbra Streisand once told me, if just one person in the audience doesn't applaud, it bothers her. I'm the same way. I'd be devastated to read that someone didn't like my work.

Call it vanity, call it arrogant presumption, call it what you wish, but I would grope for the nearest open grave if I had no newspaper to work for, no need to search for and sometimes find the winged word that just fits, no keen wonder over what each unfolding day may bring.

I believe in opening mail once a month, whether it needs it or not.

My lady's presence makes the roses red, because to see her lips they blush for shame.