Elin Hilderbrand

“I was a huge fan of J. Courtney Sullivan's novel 'Maine,' and like that novel, 'Saint' is a family saga set in Boston. Irish Catholic family secrets - is there anything better?”

“I've tried to tell my kids: If you're reading something engrossing, you'll never, ever be bored.”

“I'm not going to give quotes about inventing the 'beach book,' but I was certainly at the forefront of it.”

“Nothing was a natural predator of productive fiction writing like the cell phone. Ditto the laptop. As she had well learned, the laptop could destroy a day.”

“She had thought that 'depression' would be like sitting in a rocking chair and not being able to make it move. She had thought it would descend over her like a fog, turning things fuzzy, coloring them gray. But depression was active, it paced back and forth wringing its hands. She couldn't stop thinking; she couldn't find her way free from apprehension.”

“I jog every day for seven to eight miles a day.”

“I am a summer person.”

“My books, I will say one thing - they all have a driving narrative, and you have to turn the pages, and the way you do that is to create characters that you really love and care about and put them in a fairly dire situation.”

“I consider reading to be part of my job.”

“Fear gripped her like hands around the neck, the way it could only happen in an unfamiliar room in the pitch black of night.”

“Over the years, I have come to realize that no matter how satisfying fiction is, it becomes that much better when it actually happened.”

“It has always been a goal of mine to climb Kilimanjaro, so that's definitely happening, and I may write a memoir about it. When I was 25, I tried to trek to Everest Base Camp, but I got sick and ended up being carried out of Dingboche on the back of my Sherpa. So Kilimanjaro would represent a redemption of sorts.”

“I can cook a good soup from scratch, this is true, and I do know how to drive a stick shift.”

“I want an ending when the woman is happy instead of good.”

“Without fail, the first question I am asked at any author event is, 'Are your books based on your real life?'”

“I have long maintained that each of us has three chances a day to be happy: Breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”