Joyce Maynard

“I believed my story would be helpful to young women my daughter's age, who are still in the process of forming themselves as women, and in need of encouragement to remain true to themselves.”

“It's not only children who grow. Parents do too. As much as we watch to see what our children do with their lives, they are watching us to see what we do with ours. I can't tell my children to reach for the sun. All I can do is reach for it, myself.”

“If I told you about all the stories I don't tell, I would be violating the very boundaries I set for myself.”

“Those who rhapsodize about the ease and joy of childhood have perhaps forgotten what it's like to be 12 years old.”

“It is not the task of a reader to please her subjects.”

“The silence was part of the story I wanted to tell.”

“I wonder what it is that the people who criticize me for telling this story truly object to: is it that I have dared to tell the story? Or that the story turns out not to be the one they wanted to hear?”

“The process of writing has always started for me when I put myself in a place where no one distracts me.”

“The portrait of my parents is a complicated one, but lovingly drawn.”

“I believe every one of us possesses a fundamental right to tell our own story.”

“I do not outline. There are writers I know and count as my friends who certainly do it the other way, but for me, part of the adventure is not knowing how it's going to turn out.”

“I compromised my ability to tell my story, at the most basic level.”

“At Home in the World is the story of a young woman, raised in some difficult circumstances, and how she survives. It tells a story of redemption, not victimhood.”

“When people ask what I write about, that's what I tell them: 'The drama of human relationships.' I'm not even close to running out of material.”

“Long after Salinger sent me away, I continued to believe his standards and expectations were the best ones.”

“Teach a child to play solitaire, and she'll be able to entertain herself when there's no one around. Teach her tennis, and she'll know what to do when she's on a court. But raise her to feel comfortable in nature, and the whole planet is her home.”

“More than any other setting - more than battlefields or boardrooms or a spaceship headed for intergalactic travel - I'll put my money on the family to provide an endless source of comedy, tragedy and intrigue.”

“A good home must be made, not bought. In the end, it's not track lighting or a sun room that brings light into a kitchen.”

“I think of myself as a realistic writer, not a creator of soap opera or melodrama.”

“I was giving a speech one time, and the woman who introduced me said, 'Well, she used to be J. D. Salinger's girlfriend. I thought, 'God, is that all I've been?' I didn't want to be reduced to that.”