Elizabeth Berg

Everybody complains about getting older, but I find it such a rich time of life. There are negative things about it, I suppose, but more than that, I'm finding it to be a very positive experience in which growth suggests itself in a much more alluring way than it did when I was young - isn't that funny? ”

I never meant to write about the experience of losing a good friend to breast cancer when I was going through it. But after it was over, I realized that although something deeply sad had happened, something truly beautiful also had. ”

Every book is its own experience, the writing of it. ”

As for my 'real life,' yes, I do have friends who are different from me, and I find it refreshing being around them. ”

As for the notion that everything has already been said, maybe it has, but life is like meatloaf: there are so many different ways to present it. ”

I look to find the heart and soul of people, of my characters. I look for the truth of them and the truths about life that are presented through them. ”

My mother and her five sisters have always been living examples of the great love that can exist among sisters - and in a large family. ”

Traditions insist upon themselves. Look around, and you will see them trying to exist everywhere, in everyone's life. ”

Ideas come from life: what happens in mine, what I see happening in others', mixed with a great deal of imagination. I might see a person in a grocery store and build a whole character and life out of what's in her basket. ”

No, I never thought that I would be a writer. I had always been told I could write well, but it never occurred to me that I might make my living that way. ”