Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I am a summer person.
I jog every day for seven to eight miles a day.
Americans are really in love with their summertime.
The world needs voices that are positive and grateful, and that can be me.
I have this ridiculous exercise regime in the summer that I do not deviate from.
Iowa City is okay as Midwestern cities go, but theres no food, no culture, no ocean.
Iowa City is okay as Midwestern cities go, but there's no food, no culture, no ocean.
I may not want to write every day, but I have no choice - there are deadlines to meet.
To be early is to be on time, to be on time is to be late, to be late is to be forgotten.
I can cook a good soup from scratch, this is true, and I do know how to drive a stick shift.
I am a very nerdy reader in that I am as disciplined about my reading as I am about my writing.
When you peered into the windows of someone else's life, you could only guess what was going on.
I've tried to tell my kids: If you're reading something engrossing, you'll never, ever be bored.
I have long maintained that each of us has three chances a day to be happy: Breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
I'm not going to give quotes about inventing the 'beach book,' but I was certainly at the forefront of it.
Without fail, the first question I am asked at any author event is, 'Are your books based on your real life?'
I had a Kindle for a brief while, but I dropped it in the ocean, and that was the end of electronic reading for me.
Guilt and no guilt: these were the worst things. The only thing worse than the guilt was the fear of getting caught.
Like most writers, I read constantly. I used to hide in remote parts of the yard and house so I could read in peace.
For graduate school I ended up going to the University of Iowa, which is, of course, the best graduate writing program in the country.
Over the years, I have come to realize that no matter how satisfying fiction is, it becomes that much better when it actually happened.
Venting your anger on anyone - especially complete strangers - is not a winning tactic. Be especially sweet to bartenders and people serving you food.
I live a life very similar to my characters in that I live a full-blown summer fantasy from June to September. I go to the beach and work there every day.
I was a huge fan of J. Courtney Sullivan's novel 'Maine,' and like that novel, 'Saint' is a family saga set in Boston. Irish Catholic family secrets - is there anything better?
Sometimes you regret the things you do, but they're over and done. Regretting the things you didn't do is tougher because they're still out there, haunting you with the what ifs.
For women, my best travel tip is to invest in two to three cashmere ponchos. I buy the brand Minnie Rose. They're good cover in three seasons, and they make wonderful travel blankets.
If you love something, set it free. If it was meant to be, it will come back to you. But this, of course, was bullshit. If you loved something and let it go...it would (hello!) find something else to love.
The nice thing about e-books is that if you're sitting on the beach and you finish one Elin Hilderbrand novel and don't want to get out of your chair, you can sit there, buy the rest, and load them on your device.
My books, I will say one thing - they all have a driving narrative, and you have to turn the pages, and the way you do that is to create characters that you really love and care about and put them in a fairly dire situation.
I have met women who said, 'I started reading you when I sat in the chemo chair, and it made me feel better.' That is as humbling as it gets, to know that you, in some way, made the worst day of their life a little bit better.
I have no skills! I can't speak French, I can't ski, I can't play the guitar... I can barely log on to the Internet! All I know how to do is write novels (thank goodness) and run, and anyone who has seen me run knows I'm not very good at that, either.
It has always been a goal of mine to climb Kilimanjaro, so that's definitely happening, and I may write a memoir about it. When I was 25, I tried to trek to Everest Base Camp, but I got sick and ended up being carried out of Dingboche on the back of my Sherpa. So Kilimanjaro would represent a redemption of sorts.