“I didn't want my epitaph to be "She Played It Safe.”

“Maybe freedom means defining yourself any way you want to be.”

“Writers, naturally, dream of becoming authors. Authors dream of writing a bestseller. Bestselling authors want to write more bestsellers. And everyone hopes for big prizes. Why? Because we believe in magic." Publisher's Weekly magazine, Dec. 12, 2011”

“...Mama used to say that when you don't know what to do, do nothing. She meant you can try too hard to solve a problem. If you give it a little time, the answer might just come to you plain as day.”

“...one person can come along and change your life, and that being a misfit, as I was, doesn't mean you won't find friends and your place in the world.”

“It was terrifying, liberating, and risky. But one day I woke up and decided to try it." (On writing her first novel, "Miss Dreamsville and the Collier County Women's Literary Society")”

“When people ask me how we've lived past one hundred, I say, 'Honey, we never married. We never had husbands to worry us to death!A. Elizabeth (Bessie) Delany”