J. Courtney Sullivan

“I read as much poetry as time allows and circumstance dictates: No heartache can pass without a little Dorothy Parker, no thunderstorm without W. H. Auden, no sleepless night without W. B. Yeats.”

“My relationship with the 'Baby-Sitters Club' series bordered on addiction, and my mom got me heavily into the Trixie Belden mysteries as well. Trixie Belden was like Nancy Drew, but without the boyfriends and cute outfits, which I think is the reason my mother preferred her.”

“It's true of Irish Catholic families. They're big on story telling and big on saving stories from one generation to the next.”

“The first book I bought was 'Anne of Green Gables,' an edition that is beautiful and complete - one I hope to read with my son someday, seeing it anew through his eyes.”

“Every St. Patrick's Day in my hometown is such a huge thing. You know, it was like Christmas, but in green.”

“Early on in the writing process, there is sometimes this temptation to write around the central drama instead of just aiming for the bull's-eye. The bullseye is harder to hit, of course, but it's so much more satisfying when you do.”

“Reading poetry gives me a sense of calm, well-being, and love for humanity - the same stuff more flexible women get from yoga.”

“When I started writing my second novel, I decided that one of the characters would have a passion for dollhouses, which allowed me to do hours of guilt-free 'research' online and at the Manhattan Dollhouse boutique inside F. A. O. Schwarz.”

“A glimpse at my night stand gives the mostly true impression that I am a book hoarder.”

“I admire the linear and decisive way a certain kind of man thinks, to my curlicue boundless overthinking.”

“Fiction will always be my greatest love, with poetry close behind.”

“I love making lists.”

“One of the best parts of being a writer is getting to peer into other worlds - even if you aren't going to stay very long.”

“With the Smithies, it was different. There was sometimes no telling where one of them began and the others left off.”

“Now she saw that marriage was like being in a three-legged race with the same person for the rest of your life. Your hopes, your happiness, your luck, your moods, all yoked to his.”

“These fucking women really piss me off,' April said. 'Because instead of being elated by the thought of making their own happiness and chasing some crazy dream, all they want to do is narrow their options and do something safe.”

“I've always been drawn to older women.”

“When I was in fourth grade, a novelist came to talk to my English class. She told us that being an author meant sitting at the kitchen table in pajamas, drinking tea with the dogs at your feet.”

“The girls said she was too cynical about love, but how could you not be? On the surface, relations between men and women were all soft kisses and white gowns and hand-holding. But underneath they were a scary, complicated, ugly mess, just waiting to rise to the surface.”

“I knew that my dollhouse was a toy, but in a way, it seemed more like a portal to adulthood. I didn't play with it the way I might with my Barbie dream house. Instead, I furnished it. I kept it pristine. I decorated the house for each season. I had jack-o'-lanterns in the fall and a Christmas tree with working lights in the winter.”