For Mantle, the Yankees' locker room was a sanctuary, a safe haven where he was understood, accepted and, when necessary, exonerated.
That's why I love being a writer. My imagination can take me places I may never see except in my mind's eye.
I read 'Rebecca' when I was a teenager and was swept away by the powerful voice, the gut wrenching suspense and the dark, twisted love story at its center.
Don't waste time on what's not important. Don't get sucked into the drama. Get on with it: don't dwell on the past. Be a big person; be generous of spirit; be the person you'd admire.
When I was 12 and met my real father for the first time, I was terrified I would lose the one I already had.
A long time ago a bunch of people reached a general consensus as to what's real and what's not and most of us have been going along with it ever since.
If you spend all your time reading books that you only pretend to understand, year after year, there isn't much room for anything else.
It's essential to have sacred time for writing. All successful authors have some daily commitment to keep on-track and moving forward.
With each book you write you have to learn how to write that book - so every time, you have to start all over again.
I don't have as tight a time limit anymore but I still write in long marathon sessions and then I won't write for a while, I'm not a write-every-day writer.
I'm sharpest early, and though I can rewrite any time, day or night, I'm useless after noon when it comes to writing first draft.
I'd long wanted to write about that moment when a woman steps off the career track to have her first child. For me, that was a scary time.
As a writer, you get to play, you get alter time, you get to come up with the smart lines and the clever comebacks you wish you'd thought of.
When I'm composing a scene for the first time, I try to imitate my character. The less critical distance the better - particularly when they're acting badly.
Tween programming is so retro that the shows even have theme songs, something the quest for more commercial time drove out of prime-time television years ago.
The first time I went to Helene Hanff's apartment at 305 East 72nd Street, it was 1977, and I was a 16-year-old girl who wanted to be a writer.
Maybe it's time to go back 2,000 years for a spiritual renaissance. If not, our days may be numbered and a terrible implosion is coming. There is no more middle ground. It is one or the other.
If you go to Gettysburg and take the time, maybe take a tour, maybe just drive around, read some of the monuments, read some of the plaques, you will come away changed.
I have to believe everything I write is brand new and I'm writing in this way about these people in a completely new situation for the very first time.
No one uses a ribbon typewriter any more, but your final draft is not the time to try to wring a few more sheets out of your inkjet cartridge.
I think my prose reads as if English were my second language. By the time I get to the end of a paragraph, I'm dodging bullets and gasping for breath.
