Nothing Smelled So Good Or

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.

There Are Few Things, Apparently, More Helpful To A Writer Than Having Once Been A Weird Little Kid.

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.

One Thing Living In Japan Did For Me Was To Make Me Feel That What Is Left Out Of A Work Of Art Is As Important As, If Not More Important Than, What Is Put In.

I Am Called To Listen To The Sound Of My Own Heart -- To Write The Story Within Myself That Demands To Be Told At That Particular Point In My Life. And If I Do This Faithfully, Clothing That Idea In The Flesh Of Human Experience And Setting It In A True Place, The Sound From My Heart Will Resound In The Reader's Heart.