“Francie was ten years old when she first found an outlet in writing. What she wrote was of little consequence. What was important was that the attempt to write stories kept her straight on the dividing line between truth and fiction. If she had not found this outlet in writing, she might have grown up to be a tremendous liar.”

“At that moment, the urge to be writing was stronger than any notion she had of what she might write.”

“A good fiction writer can write any character or any story that she wants to write. The importance, IMO, is a burning desire to tell that person's story.”

“She was unaware that she was somewhat of a celebrity up in heaven. I had told people about her, what she did, how she observed moments of silence up and down the city and wrote small individual prayers in her journal, and the story had travelled so quickly that women lined up to know she had found where they’d been killed. She had fans in heaven.....Meanwhile, for us, she was doing important work, work that most people on Earth were too frightened even too contemplate.”

“People who write fiction, if they had not taken it up, might have become very successful liars.”

“In her writings, she despises her fellow man and woman for representing what she had lost.”