The truth needs so little rehearsal.

Memory is a complicated thing, a relative to truth, but not its twin.

Pain reaches the heart with electrical speed, but truth moves to the heart as slowly as a glacier.

After 'The Poisonwood Bible' was published, several people believed that my parents were missionaries, which could not be further from the truth.

For me, writing time has always been precious, something I wait for and am eager for and make the best use of. That's probably why I get up so early and have writing time in the quiet dawn hours, when no one needs me.

I can count all the ways in which being a mother has enriched my understanding of the world, of character, my sense of the future and my attachment to it. I can't imagine what kind of writer I'd be if I didn't have my kids.