To me, the idea of heaven would give you certain pleasures, certain joys - but it's very important to have an intellectual understanding of why you want those things.

Alice Sebold

I like gardening - it's a place where I find myself when I need to lose myself.

Alice Sebold

I was motivated to write about violence because I believe it's not unusual. I see it as just a part of life, and I think we get in trouble when we separate people who've experienced it from those who haven't.

Alice Sebold

The relationship with the words someone uses is more intimate and integrated than just a quick read and a blurb can ever be. This intimacy - the words on the page being sent back and forth from engaged editor to open author - is unique in my experience.

Alice Sebold

In my 20s, I railed against anything 'spiritual'; I thought it was all crap.

Alice Sebold

I'd like to go back to poetry again. I really, really revere good poetry. It's been my private discipline.

Alice Sebold

I think you only learn what kind of personality you have by committing to things.

Alice Sebold

To me, the idea of heaven would give you certain pleasures, certain joys - but it's very important to have an intellectual understanding of why you want those things.

Alice Sebold

We all work hard to understand the dynamic relationship we have with a parent.

Alice Sebold

I wanted to be the moron of the family, because morons seemed to have more fun, more freedom and more personality.

Alice Sebold

I went to church irregularly and was mostly reading comics in the pew.

Alice Sebold

I don't think ignorance is a way that you gain distance on something.

Alice Sebold

I find talking about my work harder than it might be if honesty wasn't my calling card.

Alice Sebold

I wake up very early in the morning. I like to start in the dark, and I never work at night, because my brain is evaporated by 4 P.M.

Alice Sebold

I think it's an interesting thing to me, because we have this desire for everything to be explained to us. But if you go through your daily actions, very little ends up having a written-down explanation for why things happen, or why people do specific things.

Alice Sebold

Depending on where I am in the process, sometimes I have a page count and sometimes I don't. Sometimes I have an hour count; sometimes I'm just happy to string a few words together. I do keep pretty rigorous hours, because otherwise you never get anything done.

Alice Sebold

It's hard, because when you talk about process or your characters ruling your narrative, it sounds like you have no control, but obviously you're ultimately the author, so you do have control.

Alice Sebold

I always had that sense of being censored for the things that I thought. Why is it wrong to embroider your pants, or paint with acrylics on your clothing? Why is that weird? Isn't it weirder to want to be like everyone else?

Alice Sebold

For me, heaven would be a lack of alienation. The whole time I was growing up, I felt comfort was inherently evil. I think that, for me, heaven isn't about couches and milk shakes and never having a troubling thought again.

Alice Sebold

I wanted to be a novelist for so long.

Alice Sebold

I think understanding is the way to gain perspective - and therefore can live among those hideous realities. You can live with them.

Alice Sebold