Elizabeth Berg

When I wrote 'Home Safe,' I wanted to look at a number of things: the mystery and joy and pain of creativity. What happens when a vital safety net is suddenly removed. The difficulty some people have in growing up. The way a deep love can be as crippling as it is satisfying. But mostly, I wanted to look at the mother-daughter relationship. ”

I think conflict is one of the things that makes for a good story. ”

Writing is, of course, a solitary occupation. But for many writers, myself included, it's through writing that we make certain vital connections. ”

I like my house to feel like a place where I can just lie back and say, 'Ahhhhh, I'm home.' ”

No, I am not my mother. I am deeply, endlessly grateful for what she did and who she was, but I am a different kind of person. ”

With 'Durable Goods,' I meant only to write about being an army brat. What emerged was a story about compassion - the need for it, the expression of it. ”

Not being as self-contained as men, we need to share things: It's almost as though you only know what you feel about things after you share them with a woman. ”

Nurses don't get paid very much. It didn't take long to realize that I could make more as a writer. I loved nursing, but I loved writing more. ”

It is a happy day when I am asked to publicly recommend a book. It is also a dilemma. When I consider all the books I have loved and depended upon and profited from, how can I pick just one? ”

In writing a novel about George Sand, I hoped to present her as the talented, beguiling, complicated and occasionally infuriating woman I think she was, but I hope, too, that readers will enjoy the people she surrounded herself with. ”