Quotes from Lori Wilde

Each year, I pick something new to learn. One year, it was learning how to knit, and I got 'The Sweethearts' Knitting Club' out of the experience. Another year, it was to volunteer at the local domestic abuse shelter, and I ended up volunteering there for three years.

Being loved is a good thing. A grand thing. The best damned thing of all.

Every year, I looked forward to Oprah Winfrey's Favorite Things episode. I watched with my notebook computer in my lap so I could Google the items and order them for the friends and family on my holiday gift-giving list.

For all its ups and downs and challenges, I love writing. We only grow through adversity, so I welcome the difficulties, knowing bumps in the road are my greatest teachers.

'A Tuna Christmas' is the second in a series of plays created by Joe Sears and Jaston Williams featuring the fictional town of Greater Tuna, the third-smallest town in Texas. What makes these plays so hysterically funny is the accurate portrayal of small-town life in the Lone Star State.

Romance novels have the power to bring love into the lives of readers. Through the characters, we get to fall in love every time we pick up a romance novel. What could be better than that?

I thrive under pressure.

To be honest, I chose romance because writing a book seemed so dauntingly long. I looked around for something short, discovered Harlequin romances, and decided to read a few to see if I could do it.

When an author creates a town in her novels, she spends a great deal of time visualizing the streets and buildings, landmarks and topography. And while the town becomes real in her imagination, it's rare for an author to see the place she's created actually spring to life.

I crave deadlines. If I don't have a deadline, I become a total slacker, which is why I always have so much on my plate.

I knew from the time I was a young girl that I was destined to be a writer. I'm incredibly stubborn. The more someone tells me I can't do something, the harder I work to prove them wrong. My father's nickname for me when I was growing up was 'Hardhead.'

Real cowboys wear Wranglers. End of story. Levi's may be chic and trendy, but if you work cattle for a living, you wear Wranglers.

My husband is the romantic one in our relationship. He's always doing sweet things for me. Each year, we recreate our first date - it was a blind date, and we met at the zoo, followed by a trip to the museum. I'd have to say that's my favorite romantic date.

Stetsons are the ultimate in cowboy headwear.

I was a latecomer to romance, although I did read gothics. My father used to work for the 'Fort Worth Star-Telegram,' and their book reviewer, author Leonard Sanders, would pass on the gothics for my dad to give to me since Leonard didn't review gothics. I gobbled up books by Mary Stewart, Madeleine Brent, Victoria Holt and Phyllis Whitney.

Ooh conflict, the heart of any juicy story.

Don't judge people by their kinfolk. —Dutch Callahan

baseball should be played for the love of the game and not the almighty dollar. I

But their suffering doesn't mitigate yours." "Suffering doesn't make me special. Sooner or later, life knocks everyone down. It's how you deal with the knocks and dings that matter.

People often feel threatened by things that are different. It reflects their ignorance, not your reality.

All her life, loneliness had weighed against her like a heavy coin tucked into a breast pocket, small but constant.

He'd left her stranded in front of three hundred wedding guests, wearing a white dress and glass slippers like some deranged Cinderella, while he caught a plane to the Cayman Islands with a knock-kneed stripper named Chrysanthemum Greene and several million dollars embezzled from the Stardust Savings and Loan.

Cast your hook in the stream where you least expect to get a bite; if you hook a fish, then you'll know you're truly lucky. —Dutch Callahan

Memories pummeled Mariah as she climbed up the precarious wooden porch riddled with termite holes.