Sara Zarr

“Is it good, bad, or neutral to recognize thematic patterns in your own work? When it comes to recurring themes, I'm of the mind that knowledge is probably not power, at least in terms of the work.”

“My parents met in music school, and my father was a music professor and conductor. Growing up, we always had classical and contemporary music playing.”

“When my characters are questioning things, it's not me leading up to an answer; it's me asking those same questions and letting the characters' lives unfold and seeing where it takes them.”

“I grew up in San Francisco in the 1970s. We were part of a church that belonged to the California Jesus movement.”

“Everyone has an identity crisis when they are 16 or 17 years old.”

“Is that the destiny of all friendships, no matter how good they are? To die out or fade away? To end?”

“We'd walk home together in the foggy summer night and I'd tell her about sex; the good stuff, like how it could be warm and exciting--it took you away--and the not-so-good things, like how once you showed someone that part of yourself, you had to trust them one thousand percent and anything could happen. Someone you thought you knew could change and suddenly not want you, suddenly decide you made a better story than a girlfriend. Or how sometimes you might think you wanted to do it and then halfway through or afterward realize no, you just wanted the company, really; you wanted someone to choose you, and the sex part itself was like a trade-off, something you felt like you had to give to get the other part. I'd tell her that and help her decide. I'd be a friend.”

“I wanted to be free to write the way I wanted to write, and my impression of Christian publishing, at least in fiction, was that there wasn't room for what I wanted to write.”

“My whole life has been one big broken promise.”