My soul found ease and rest in the companionship of books.

Few things linger longer or become more indwelling than that feeling of both completion and emptiness when a great book ends. That the book accompanies the reader forever from that day forward is part of literature's profligate generosity.

Even today, I hunt for the fabulous books that will change me utterly. I find myself happiest in the middle of a book which I forget that I am reading, but am instead immersed in a made-up life lived at the highest pitch.

When my novel 'Beach Music' came out in 1995, I had included a couple of recipes in the book and had tried to impart some of my love of Roman cuisine and the restaurants of Rome.

Red Hook Road made me happy, and happy to be alive. It took me out of my home on the coast of South Carolina, placed me in the town along Red hook Road, and changed me the way good books always do.

My mother saw in 'Gone With the Wind' the text of liberating herself, ... She took 'Gone With the Wind' as the central book in her life, and made it the central book in her family.