“You know why they call it the Garden State, don't you? It's like the Garden of Eden-- everyone is from there originally, but no one you meet actually lives there anymore.”

“For God's sake, even her parents no longer read Dostoyevsky--haven't they suffered enough, they would say; after thirty years of communism, didn't they DESERVE Danielle Steele?”

“From the beginning, I did not intend to create a typical classic fantasy. I wanted an organic, harmonious world where my story could evolve. If this world needed gnomes, I put them in there. As for drevalyankas, pikshas, bolugs and other totally original creatures, they appeared there somehow by themselves in the course of events, and then just began "to get under the feet of the main heroes"...”

“A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.”

“Eden is within you; it is your life's garden. It is from this internal garden that you experience your external life. If you see weeds, pluck them!”

“I suppose because our hearts are made in a certain way we cannot help being what we are.”

“Henry Mitchell, in his book One Man's Garden, observes that "it is not important for a garden to be beautiful" in everyone's eyes. But "it is extremely important for the gardener to think it is a fair substitute for Eden." Perhaps this is an overstatement, or perhaps it is a theological truth.”