Quotes from Caroline Leavitt

I think I became a writer because of my love of stories and an inability to stop asking, 'What if?'

Indie bookstores love writers as much as they love readers, and there is something about a community store, where you walk in, you feel known, and the delight in books is just infectious.

When self-publishing started, it was mostly people who really couldn't write. And they just wanted to get their book out, and they couldn't get traditional deals.

Writing is really hard, and it's really a skill.

I tell myself that some names can be mistakes, like Mxyplyzyk, a store in New York that lost customers because few could spell its name to look up the address. I tell myself that lots of writers agonize over titles, and often get them wrong at first.

I know another New York Times bestselling author - Beth Kephart - she self-published one of her books.

People love stories. They need stories.

I just love that feeling of being in another world, of creating characters and watching where they go.

I love rewriting because that is where and how you discover the story. Its like you have this skeleton, and you get to put flesh on it and hair and clothes and really wonderful jewelry.

There have been years where I've had to take a real job and I wrote during slow times and lunches. I think never forgetting how lucky I am to be able to do something I love has really fueled me.

I had a writing professor at Brandeis who told me I'd never make it - and when I sold my first novel a few years later, I sent him a copy!

I cried to my mother that I wanted to go to Hebrew school; I wanted Jewish friends. But when my mother took me, the kids there all knew each other, and somehow I was even more of an outcast.

Which is worse, she thinks, waiting for the sting, or the sting itself?

Why doesn't he get over it already? But that was the secret, wasn't it? You never got over what you lost. You always carried it with you, stitched to you like Peter Pan's shadow. And you never wanted to get over it, because who wanted to forget a time that had been so important? No, the truth was, you wanted to remember it always.

Gary'nin hat?rlayabildi?i kadar?yla Gerta,ilk defa bu kadar hassas görünüyordu.Kirpikleri titriyor,a?z? bir kö?eye do?ru seyiriyordu.'Mükemmel bir i? ç?kar?yorsun.Otis seni çok seviyor.

I remember thinking we were going to grow old together, one of those couples who hold hands, not just to keep from falling, but because they love each other so much that they can't be without contact.

All you had of a person was what they showed you.

He tried to be a good man, to do the right things, to make the world a little better than it had been before he had put his stamp upon it. You could be generous with the love you gave, with the care you took with others. You could follow all the command- ments that made sense to you and still the world could sideswipe you. There was no cause and effect. There was no karma. The truth was that he wasn't so sure he understood how the world worked anymore.

Always remember," she had told him. "When you're grown up, I want you to take your girlfriend, or your wife, or boyfriend—whoever it is you love—and you make sure they know you so well they can read your mind. You don't even have to tell them what you need, because they already know it. If they don't—well, it isn't love.

The way to get free of pain is to dive down into it. To acknowledge it.

It is up to angels to show you signs and it is your job to decode the meaning. Above all, be humble and full of gratitude.

cry. He knew that the light from stars was light that was dead already, that what you were seeing was the past, not your present, and certainly not your future.

street. All a car had to do was move closer, a door swing

Why didn't people belong to the ones who tried to love them?