Quotes from Luanne Rice

A Gift from the Sea: "When you love someone, you don't love them the same way all the time…

love as if you're riding through the storm of the century. You surf the waves, ride the crests, sail through moonlit waters with ice in your rigging… but you love each other as you go. You love each other as if every day is the only day….

She'd thought of her own family, of how happy she had thought they were. In some ways, they were completely different from the Tyrones. Her family didn't suffer from addiction or alcoholism. No one had a fatal disease. Instead of two sons, there were two daughters. Her father had not been a drunk, but he had been a liar and a cheat. He had acted the role of good husband and father but was actually a different person entirely.

He was so charming. Even Kate was charmed by him, only back then she had called it love. She had adored her dad—he could do no wrong.

You just said you love them, Susannah," Helen said finally. "So you must ask yourself: what are you willing to do for them?

Our stories remind us how precious and fragile life can be-- and that we must risk our hearts everyday to know happiness.

What it takes is to actually write: not to think about it, not to imagine it, not to talk about it, but to actually want to sit down and write. I'm lucky I learned that habit a really long time ago. I credit my mother with that. She was an English teacher, but she was a writer.

After 30 novels, release day is still a thrill. It's always a little bittersweet, too.

'Safe Harbor' is a state of mind... it's the place - in reality or metaphor - to which one goes in times of trouble or worry. It can be a friendship, marriage, church, garden, beach, poem, prayer, or song.

'Little Night' has layers of meaning. There's something enchanted about night. All those heavenly bodies, shooting stars, the crescent moon, celestial phenomenon. Owls fly at night, and first kisses happen. Night is romantic. Alternately, darkness hides the worst of human behavior.

I traveled to Ireland to research 'Sandcastles,' to visit the coastline where my ancestors looked toward America, the tiny town they once loved so much, and the docks from which they sailed toward their dreams of building a better life for their family. The answers I found on that journey are woven through the novel.

The biggest mistake any of us can make is thinking that love is a feeling, an emotion. It's not that at all. It's an action.

Sometimes waiting is the hardest thing of all.

You fall in love with the girl next door but married her sister.

When my father died, I was 21, and he'd been sick for a few years. He changed during his illness. He kind of softened during it.

Some feelings are stronger than fear: love, longing, desire.

Hannah writes of love with compassion and conviction.

A lot of writers dream of feature films, but television - by way of TNT, CBS, Lifetime, and Hallmark Hall of Fame - has always called my name. And after seeing 'True Detective,' can there be any doubt that the storytelling on TV is as genius as it gets?

My mother painted and wrote. She always had a painting in progress on an easel in the kitchen, so our house always smelled like oil paint. At night, she wrote after she'd put my sisters and me to bed, and the sound of her typing was our lullaby.

When I was married to an abuser, he'd tell me he wouldn't have to get so angry if only I'd be less demanding, more supportive, more understanding. I hid the truth from everyone, especially myself.

I went to Cork, Ireland, and stood on the dock some of my ancestors had left from. I felt their ghosts gather round me, and I cried to imagine what it must have felt like - leaving that beautiful land and those beloved people, knowing it was forever.

During one new moon at perigee, I stood on high ground, watching salt ponds overflow, cover the beach, and meet the ocean. Because the moon was invisible, the water was black as it drowned the sand, and the event felt primal - which in fact it was, because it was nature.

While novels are fiction, mine are usually very close to my heart. Like my other books, 'The Lemon Orchard' is inspired by something I care about. I care so deeply. The stories are my dreams, and I want to do a lot of research. Roberto is based on a real live friend of mine named Armando who worked in my garden.

I was married to a law student, and I used to attend classes with him at Georgetown University Law Center. Being of dramatic bent, I was drawn mainly to Criminal law and Evidence classes. A just-beginning writer, I would find an empty chair and listen, mesmerized, to the lectures.