“Music is my longtime friend. And I could never betray it. I listen to music while I’m writing.”

“I make writing as much a part of my life as I do eating or listening to music.”

“Music’s the soundtrack of my life and has been since I was a teenager. There’s always music. If I’m not playing it, I’m listening to it. With my writing…sometimes it inspires a story, sometimes it highlights something I’m working on, sometimes it simply helps me stay in the narrative mood.”

“I knew I would have to relearn how to listen to music, and that some of the music we'd loved together I'd never be able to hear again.”

“I’m a word freak. I like words. I’ve always compared writing to music. That’s the way I feel about good paragraphs. When it really works, it’s like music.”

“The world in books seemed so much more alive to me than anything outside. I could see things I'd never seen before. Books and music were my best friends. I had a couple of good friends at school, but never met anyone I could really speak my heart to.”