Born on March 27th

"Whenever you do a new interpretation of a great, previous text of any kind, you always look for some kind of immediate significance right now."

"That's the best thing that classic can do, is it can return to us from our own past to give us lessons about the future, and it can give us a sense of both who we were and who we could become."

"We get a lot of raps as Americans for being small-minded, but in fact, when you really drill down to the core of the culture, there's an enormous amount of compassion and forgiveness and support."

"When you make new musicals, you have the great freedom and the great burden that it can be changed."

"The last romantic novel I think I read was 'Tess of the d'Urbervilles.'"

"I'm sort of a Freudian about theater; it's always a struggle between freedom and security, between 'Do I stay where I am with my family because I love them or do I follow the thing that makes my heart feel the greatest?'"

"If he'd just crowded me down to the side of the asphalt, I'd have been OK. But when he ran me completely off the racetrack, I lost it."

"I think it turned the whole sport around. It got everybody's attention. People who were watching TV live were jumping up and down in their living rooms."

"I knew Childress was going to help me because my crew told me on the radio. I really appreciate what Richard did, but that is typical of people in this sport."

"I've always looked upon the Ducks as caricature human beings. Perhaps I've been years writing in that middle world that J.R.R. Tolkien describes, and never knew it."

"I always felt myself to be an unlucky person like Donald, who is a victim of so many circumstances. But there isn't a person in the United States who couldn't identify with him. He is everything, he is everybody; he makes the same mistakes that we all make."

"I was never a Boy Scout, but oh, I wanted to be one when I was a kid about ten or eleven years old. But there wasn't anyplace where I could ever join the Boy Scouts."

"There was no difference between my characters and the life my readers were going to have to face."

"I enjoyed doing the gag covers better than the story ones because they were usually simpler. A cover based on an incident in the plot took a great deal of staging to tell a little story that was still part of the book. And it had to make sense on its own."

"I read some of my stories recently and thought, 'How in the hell did I get away with that?' I had some really raw cynicism in some of them."

"I've been approached in the past to option my stories for television, but prior to Evergreen, there were no assurances the production would be filmed in Alaska."

"My stories are Alaska stories, and they need to be told in Alaska. Evergreen Films is located in Alaska; the company does amazing work, and I am thrilled at the prospect of working together."

"The first thing my writing ever earned me wasn't an advance on a book; it wasn't a fee for an article or anything like that. It was, in fact, a residency at Hedgebrook Farm."

"I don't know how many people there are with a million dollars who are inclined to give it to a writers' retreat."

"I would be ecstatic if the very first writer to step foot in a Storyknife cabin was an Alaska Native woman writer."

"Unless you are Stephen King, a book signing is attended by maybe 40 or 50 people."

"I love diamond facials - they leave me glowing and refreshed."

"For me, it's not about price. It's about necessity, quality, and usefulness. Like, I have my Wet N Wild 666 lip liner. It's 99 cents and always has been. I started using it when I was in high school, and it's great."

"I love crying at romantic movies like 'The Notebook.' I'm always bawling."

"I love Nelly. He's such a great performer. He's so hyper and so am I."

"Dick Clark will be truly missed. We will carry on his legacy every New Year's Eve."

"I've learned to be more accepting of myself. I'm 37, not 18, and I've got the lines to prove it. I try to remind myself that a girl can have it all, just not all at once."

"I'm famous for splurging at fast-food places. I'm currently obsessed with Taco Bell's bean and cheese burritos with extra green sauce and extra cheese. Gluttony!"

"I'm very ambitious, but I also love myself - which means I try to take care of myself."

"Grades were important in our house. I was reading by two. My mom would sit there and read with me, read with me, read with me. It was wonderful."