Quotes from Elizabeth Berg

Some people read an interesting or provocative newspaper article, and that's the end of that. A writer reads such an article, and her imagination gets fired up. Questions occur to her. She might feel an urge to finish the story that the article suggests.

My favorite splurge is homemade chocolate cake and vanilla ice cream or a Sausage McMuffin with egg or scalloped potatoes or turkey yanked right off the carcass and dipped in gravy or See's chocolate.

I've always felt an overwhelming need to get out what was inside. The vehicle for me was words on paper - not speech, not art, not dance, not anything else.

I always wrote as a vehicle for expression but did not try writing for publication until my mid-thirties, at which time I started writing for magazines. I wrote essays and then short stories, then moved into novels.

No matter what you write, you need an active imagination.

I think the most important quality for a writer to have is empathy.

The world of literature is so rich and so enriching. The value is inestimable of what reading does for you.

Nothing tastes as good as being thin feels.

When I write a book, I don't have an idea of what I'm doing. I just go where it leads.

I love libraries, as anyone who has a brain does.