Joyce Maynard

Women writers have been told, forever, that our stories were not valuable. Not as valuable as men's stories about wars, business, power.

More than any other setting - more than battlefields or boardrooms or a spaceship headed for intergalactic travel - I'll put my money on the family to provide an endless source of comedy, tragedy and intrigue.

Not only did I avoid speaking of Salinger; I resisted thinking about him. I did not reread his letters to me. The experience had been too painful.

Those who rhapsodize about the ease and joy of childhood have perhaps forgotten what it's like to be 12 years old.

I've had some wonderful successes and some extreme disappointments in my career and my life.

Nothing like being visible, publishing one's work, and speaking openly about one's life, to disabuse the world of the illusion of one's perfection and purity.

When people ask what I write about, that's what I tell them: 'The drama of human relationships.' I'm not even close to running out of material.

A person who deserves my loyalty receives it.

The big dramas that fascinate me are the quiet ones that happen behind closed doors in so-called ordinary families.

It's not only children who grow. Parents do too. As much as we watch to see what our children do with their lives, they are watching us to see what we do with ours. I can't tell my children to reach for the sun. All I can do is reach for it, myself.

Teach a child to play solitaire, and she'll be able to entertain herself when there's no one around. Teach her tennis, and she'll know what to do when she's on a court. But raise her to feel comfortable in nature, and the whole planet is her home.

My job is writing. I get paid to do it. When was the last time you heard someone challenge a doctor for making money off of cancer?