When I realized that I can invest in my own marketing and do exactly what I think needs to be done - well, then it just feels like, what is the benefit of having a publisher?

The idea of being published was such an abstract thing in the beginning. It wasn't even an option in my mind.

I used to say that if I could get paid to read books, my life would be made.

I never really had a lot of friends where I lived. Online, you can have thousands of friends.

I'm not writing about the 1 percent of people who have this fairy-tale, amazing life. I'm writing about people like me, who maybe had a rough childhood.

I was a struggling army wife going to community college who didn't know what to do with my life.

I became a fanatic of the architecture of Le Corbusier and I visited almost all his buildings and read all his books. Only later on did I discover that all the things that impressed me in his books, particular his ideology, he had picked up from Auguste Perret.

Prince Charles was a lot wittier than I thought he'd be, and passionate about the environment and architecture.

Every good painter paints what he is.

Let each man exercise the art he knows.

A compromise is the art of dividing a cake in such a way that everyone believes he has the biggest piece.

Mainly what I learned from Buddy... was an attitude. He loved music, and he taught me that it shouldn't have any barriers to it.