Quotes About Inspiration

As a child, I lived through and survived the segregated South. I sat at the back of the bus at a time when America wasn't yet as great as it could be. As a grown woman, I saw the first black president reach down a hand and touch the face of a child like I once was, lifting his eyes toward a better future.

Instead of just surviving life and hoping to make it through one more day, I live my life with joy now, and I'm incredibly grateful.

My biggest inspiration has been life for me. Basic survival has been my biggest teacher. Surviving in Mumbai for so many years has been a huge ordeal.

Hi, I'm Bill. I'm a birth survivor.

I think that when people see that a successful person who has suffered and is a survivor of mental illness, and is still very successful, I think it gives them a lot of strength.

I like 'Bootylicious,' 'Survivor' - my little granddaughter loves 'Survivor.'

I'm a survivor. I'm a messenger.

I never thought of myself as a strong person until I wrote my first book, and people started to say, 'You're a survivor. You're such a strong person.' It never ever occurred to me.

In some ways 'Survivor' might have saved my life.

My novella, 'The Lucky One,' is inspired in part by my dad and also by a Holocaust survivor I interviewed for the Steven Spielberg Survivors of the Shoah Foundation.

I thought I would keep the first name Susan and change the last name but I picked up this book and as I opened it the lead character in it was called Morgan Brittany.

I will admit, I once launched myself at Julie Garwood for a hug, hoping some of her magic would rub off on me... and I have fangirl crushes on Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Linda Howard, and Kresley Cole, among many others.

Simultaneously, my two biggest heroes are Susan Sontag and Morticia Addams from 'The Addams Family.'

I have favorite authors from a lifetime of reading, so there are some I'll automatically read every time they have a new novel. Included in them: Robert Goddard, Jeffery Deaver, Sophie Kinsella, Katherine Neville, Greg Isle, Laurie King, Lee Child, Lisa Tucker, Susan Howatch, Paul Auster. Barry Eisler, David Hewson, Tracy Chevalier.

The fantasy I've always had is that somehow I could move back in time. I would like to be there when Susan B. Anthony was dying, or someone like that. I would say to her, 'You won't believe what's going to happen.' And then I would tell her.

I'm a huge fan of Alice Hoffman, Fred Chappell and Susan Elizabeth Phillips.

Certainly there are dozens of over-50 actresses who look great: Sophia Loren, Susan Sarandon, Ursula Andress, Stefanie Powers, Raquel Welch, Barbara Eden, Joanna Lumley, Linda Gray - the list is endless, and these are just the actresses! I have many friends in their 60s, 70s and 80s, not in the limelight, but who all look absolutely stunning.

Being able to incorporate my language into songs is really cool. It's really cool to see that people are susceptible to it. It helps with writing a lot to turn off one language and then go to another.

Aphorisms are food for thought - like sushi, they come in small portions that are both delicious and exquisitely formed. And, like sushi, I can never get enough.

You know how kids dream of being soccer players or actors? Well, my dream was to be a sushi chef.

Someday I suspect, when Jesus has definitely got me for a sunbeam, my works may be adequately assessed.

All my books are made up of other books. They're all deeply structured on other fiction, because I was a student in fiction and I didn't have much actual living to draw on. I suspect a lot of other people's novels are like that, too, though they might be slower to talk about it.

I suspect there are two kinds of novelists. Those who have a point of view and have something to say and then write a novel in order to say that thing, and those of us who write the book in order to find out what we think about that thing.

I've had a family my entire adult life; I started raising kids when I was 21. I suspect that being part of a family has probably informed my life as a writer as much as anything else has.