Caroline Leavitt

“Writing is really hard, and it's really a skill.”

“Is there nothing the prodigiously talented Ann Patchett can't do? She's channeled the world of opera, Boston politics, magic, unwed motherhood, and race relations, creating scenarios so indelible, you swear they are right outside your door.”

“I had a nervous breakdown at 17 when my first love left me, and he was a typical bad boy, albeit a charismatic one, with a string of broken hearts trailing behind him.”

“I had a writing professor at Brandeis who told me I'd never make it - and when I sold my first novel a few years later, I sent him a copy!”

“By the time I was 5, I was already an outcast. It was the early 1960s, and I was part of the only Jewish family in a decidedly Christian suburb of Waltham, Mass.”

“When self-publishing started, it was mostly people who really couldn't write. And they just wanted to get their book out, and they couldn't get traditional deals.”

“Everyone thinks that a new place or a new identity will jumpstart a new life.”

“The dead can't change, but you can.”

“Indie bookstores love writers as much as they love readers, and there is something about a community store, where you walk in, you feel known, and the delight in books is just infectious.”

“I tell myself that some names can be mistakes, like Mxyplyzyk, a store in New York that lost customers because few could spell its name to look up the address. I tell myself that lots of writers agonize over titles, and often get them wrong at first.”

“I am an indifferent cook, but I can make pie.”

“I know another New York Times bestselling author - Beth Kephart - she self-published one of her books.”

“I think I became a writer because of my love of stories and an inability to stop asking, 'What if?'”

“I cried to my mother that I wanted to go to Hebrew school; I wanted Jewish friends. But when my mother took me, the kids there all knew each other, and somehow I was even more of an outcast.”

“I call Algonquin Books 'the gods and goddesses of publishing.' Not only did they give me a career, they care deeply about every writer in their flock.”

“My dirty little secret is I don't drive at all, though I have my license and I renew it every five years. I'm phobic. I keep worrying if I drive, I'll end up killing someone. I hoped that by writing about a car crash, I might understand and heal this phobia, but I didn't! I'm still phobic.”

“Housewives of the 1950s were supposed to create show-stopping meals every night for their hard-working husbands.”

“I am totally and completely addicted to movies. Jeff, my husband and I, watch movies every night and go out to the movies constantly.”

“I had always known that I was Jewish - we celebrated the holidays, we went to a synagogue - but I had never known that I was supposed to feel ashamed about it.”