Nora Roberts quotes:

I believe strongly in writing groups such as Romance Writers Of America that offer support, information and networking.

And each book has to receive your best effort every single time. No slacking.

I don't think you can write - at least not well - if you don't love stories, love the written word.

I loved the process of writing.

She stared at him"You'd be willing to change your life so dramatically?""Ray and Stella Quinn changed my life.

Action, reaction, motivation, emotion, all have to come from the characters. Writing a love scene requires the same elements from the writer as any other.

Do you think, Sam, that even if it were only my own heart at risk, I could pour it into your hands again?Then just take mine. I'm not doing anything else with it.

It looks like Armani and Cartier went to war.

In the summer of '80, Silhouette bought my first book.

You can't edit a blank page

I can fix a bad page. I can't fix a blank page.

I don't need you by my side. But I want you there. Very much want you there. That, I think, saysmore. Means more.He took the hand she held out to him. We'll go down. James should be here soon

I find I use the Internet more and more. It's just an invaluable tool. I do most of my research on the Net now - and certainly do the bulk of my communicating through email.

Actually, I find it great fun to develop family series with lots of characters.

I don't fiddle or edit or change while I'm going through that first draft.

Why are you always smiling? What do you know?

That has not yet been put to the test. I got my fourth-degree black belt this winter. When I make martial arts noises, thousands flee in terror. Don't test me." "Can you hear that? It's my knees knocking." "They're wise to fear me.

You can fix anything but a blank page.

Every single book is a challenge.

- "Women should all move to Amazonia, or at least vacation there four times a year." - "Amazonia?" - "It's the girl world in my head, where I go when I'm annoyed with Carter, or just men in general. There are five shoe stores per capita, nothing has any c

I'll give you everything I've got, and if you need more, I'll find it and give it to you.

Some days, the music is not in tune, but it's always a song worth singing. That's the best description of a good marriage I've ever heard

Popular fiction's a strong and viable force in literature. That's why it's popular.

Knowing isn't always believing.

She surrounded herself with books at work and at home. Her living space was a testament to her first and abiding love with shelves jammed with books tables crowded with them. She saw them not only as knowledge entertainment comfort even sanity but as a kind of artful decoration.

It's hard to resist a bad boy who's a good man.

I generally write a first draft that's pretty lean. Just get the story down.

I'd have given you everything I had. If you'd needed more, I'd have found it, and given you that. It's the way I love. It's the only way I know how.

Love spells are nothing but wives' tales. You can't play magic inside the heart, for it's more powerful than any spell. Lust you can order up with a wink, desire with a smile. But love is love, and there is nothing can touch it.

The lack of energy struck unfairly keen when Mo bounced into the stables"Just had to come by before I headed off to the hell of school.

Why were there no buoys in life to show you the way?

I don't think I am a traditional romantic who thinks about candlelight dinners and wonders if my husband is going to bring me flowers, though I'm delighted if he does. I'm more practical-minded. I find it incredibly romantic that my husband does the dishes.

I think I've just lost five pounds in fear sweat." Peabody mopped at her face. "Now I want a cannoli. I don't know why." With a laugh, Roarke shifted to grin at her. "I'll buy you a dozen, precious." "Cannolis, for God's sake.

Oh, God. God, isn't that perfect? He's Dad. He's Dad with a layer of nerd. Solid, steady, chipping away so patiently, you don't even know you've had your shields hacked down until you're defenseless. It's the type." "You're not in love with a type, you're in love with a man," Penny corrected. "Or you're not.

Eve engaged her On Duty sign and stepped out of the car. Immediately her ears were assaulted with a blast of music. Christmas carols pumped, full blast, into the air. She decided that people ran inside, ready to buy anything, just to escape the noise.

I would hope that my writing's cleaner than it was when I started.

You bring the color and the life. It's a lucky man who is offered that color and life, and a wise one who values it.

What about your crepe?" "Stuff It." "She's crazy about you," Mavis commented. "It's almost embarrassing, the way she fawns.

Love and magic have a great deal in common. They enrich the soul, delight the heart. And they both take practice.

You don't need to diet, She-Body. You are a just-right female." "McNab?" Eve said. "Yes, sir." "Shut up." "It's all right, Dallas. We're a couple." "A couple of what? No, don't tell me. Don't talk to me. Don't talk to each other. Let there be silence across the land.

She raised her eyes to his. They had both come from misery, she thought, and survived it. They had been drawn together through violence and tragedy, and had overcome it. They walked different paths and had found a mutual route. Some things last, she thought. Some ordinary things. Like love.

Put all your eggs in one basket... the handle's going to break. Then all you've got is scrambled eggs.

Statues are too much like dolls, and dolls are creepy. You keep expecting them to blink. And the ones that smile, like this?" Eve kept her lips tight together and she curved them up. "You know they've got teeth in there. Big, sharp, shiny teeth." I didn't. But now I've got to worry about it.

The worst, the very worst requirement of friendship, in Eve Dallas's opinion, was sitting through an entire evening of childbirth classes. What went on there--the sights, the sounds, the assault on all the senses--turned the blood cold.

He blinked, then roared with laughter. "Eve Dallas, Vampire Slayer. One for the books." ~Eternity in Death

You--Roarke." Eyes watering, she reached for more tissue. "Jesus, Eve. Jesus Christ, you never sleep with anybody. And you're telling me you slept with Roarke?" "That's not precisely accurate. We didn't sleep.

I want to see you again." He stopped, took her face in his hands. "I need to see you again." Her pulse jumped, as if it had nothing to do with the rest of her. "Roarke, what's going on here?" "Lieutenant." He leaned forward, touched his lips to hers. "indications are we're having a romance.

You are who you are. I know you. You believe that? "Yea but--" "You're Eve Dallas. You're the love of my life. My heart and Soul. You're a cop, mind and bone. You're a woman of strength and resilience. Stubborn, hardheaded, occassionally mean as a badger, and more generous that you'll admit.

Roarke, what's going on here?' 'Lieutenant.' He leaned forward, touched his lips to hers. 'Indications are we're having a romance.

Bite me." -Lieutenant Eve Dallas, from any of the In Death books.

Certainly the plagiarism, and dealing with the fallout of it, was the most difficult thing I've ever faced since I started writing.

You know, lieutenant, you wear your weapon the way other women wear pearls." "It's not a fashion accessory.

My fondest wish, I suppose, would be to die at the keyboard right after finishing a book, perhaps with a little time off to have some really good sex. It's not, 'Oh, thank God, this is book No. 250. I can die now.'

Roarke: You'd enjoy flying more if you'd learn the controls. Eve: I'd rather pretend I'm on the ground. Roarke: And how many vehicles have you wrecked, had blown up, or destroyed in the last, oh, two years? Eve: Think about that, then imagine it happening when I'm at the wheel at thirty thousand feet. Roarke: Good point. I'll do the flying.

Mary Stewart will always be my goddess. I can pick up one of her early books - one I've read a dozen times - and still slide right into the story.

My mother says happy ever after's a bunch of bull.

Plus it's just embarrassing when someone - oops.' She pressed a hand to her side, and had the blood draining out of Harper's face. 'What? What?' 'Nothing. baby's moving around. Sometimes it gives me a jolt is all.' 'You should stand up. You should sit down.

Knowledge is a great gift, and the thirst to seek it even greater. Use what you know...Head and heart...You are not made to give greater weight to one than the other.

Aren't most romance heros, or heros in fiction of any kind, generally superior to real men? Same goes for heroines and real women.

No. No, I don't believe you'd betray me with her. I don't believe you'd cheat on me. But I'm afraid, and I'm sick in my heart that you might look at her, then at me. And regret.

I know you love me, but I don't know why. I look at you and I just can't get why it's me. Every time I get my balance, I lose it again. Because it shouldn't be me, and I think it'd kill me if you ever figured that out.

I saw you standing on a veranda you'd built with your own hands. And I loved you.

If you love someone, when it's the most real, the most important thing in your life, it's not enough to coast. You need to dig in those footers, start building on that base. You want something to last, you put your back into it.

We make our own choices and we're each responsible for them. Blame and credit belong to the individual. You haven't the right to claim either from someone else.

Laurel: I don't need a ring or a license, or a spetacular white dress. It's not marriage so much, or at all really, that matters. It's the promise. It's the knowing someone wants me to be part of his life. Someone loves me, that I'm the one for him. That's not just enough, it's everything.

I do indeed write on the road. My laptop goes with me everywhere.

When something comes easy, you usually let it go the same way.

Life is like a moustache. It can be wonderful or terrible. But it always tickles.

You're excuses are so lame they're limping...

Love birds don't always sing pretty tunes.

Love without trust? It's not love at all.

Magic exists. Who can doubt it, when there are rainbows and wildflowers, the music of the wind and the silence of the stars? Anyone who has loved has been touched by magic. It is such a simple and such an extraordinary part of the lives we live.

You don't find time to write. You make time. It's my job.

She's in love, and that makes her strong. She'll need to be." "What makes you strong, Mia?" "Purpose. Love never worked for me.

Whatever you remember, or feel, you need to know that whatever they were they did one worthwhile thing in their miserable lives. And that was you. Whatever they were, they couldn't destroy that. They couldn't stop you from becoming.

I guess money can't buy happiness if you shop in the wrong places.

She could and had faced an armed laser in the hands of a mad mutant mercenary with less fear than she faced such unswerving emotion.

I promised myself that no matter where I went, what I did, I'd never take anything for granted again.

No second chance?" A wry smile twisted Carrick's lips. "There might have been, had I not waited so long to take it.

There's an oatmeal cookie in there. I see no reason for the existence of oatmeal, particularly in cookies.

Okay, you're right about that. But this whole ghost thing's irritating." "Park benches are irritating to you in some moods." "Depends on whether or not I want to sit down.

Potholes and bumps? Welcome to the world. Every road gas them. They're there to be navigated, avoided, driven over, or through to the other side. Don't keep driving into the pothole.

You love tests?" "Well, yeah. There are questions and answers. True or false, multiple choice, essay. What's not to love?

It's not an exaggeration to say that they saved my life. Ray Quinn, then Cam and Ethan and Phil. They turned their world around for me, and because of it, turned mine around with it. Anna and Grace and Sybill, Aubrey too. They made a home for me, and nothing that happened before matters nearly as much as everything that came after.

You mess with one Quinn, you mess with them all.

Are you telling me you're cooking me dinner?- Regan Its the quickest way, without physical contact, to get a woman into bed. The kitchen through there?

it taught me, that when a woman lets herself love, she loses. it taught me that to survive, you rely on yourself first and last." -adrianne "It should have also taught you that sometimes love has no threshold." -philip

It's crowded, she murmured as her eyes laughed into his.The longer we're in here... His thighs brushed against hers as a toddler wiggled up to the glassThe fonder I am of snakes.

How about a midnight swim?Swim? On a sigh,Shelby closed her eyes and let the sensations take herI didn't bring a suit.Good. Alan led her down the hall to two large double doors. After pulling them open, he nudged Shelby inside, then closed and locked the doors behind them.

Bet it was some ride. Theo manfully swallowed the prickly lump in his throat. There was ajittering inside his chest that came as much from seeing his father break apart as from anxiety overMaddyI'll haul her in, Dad. You're going to wreck your arm

Okay. Let's try this instead. He pulled her in, held her.Thanks. Can you do without the things you took to the castello for a few days? I'll have thempacked up and sent. We need to go home, Ty. I need to be home.Best news I've had in days. He kissed the top of her headLet's go.

You have to believe in it to get it...

Anything worth anything can be found in books.

Courage comes in different forms. There's strength--that's the muscle. But love's the heart. When you put them together, you can do anything.

Love runs the engine

Roz to Amelia (the house ghost): How considerate of you, after trying to kill me, to see that I don't catch a cold.

Anyone that has character leaves a mark on another. Would you like to leave the world without making a ripple?

A relationship isn't something that has to be created in a day or perfected in a day. Part of the game is to keep working on it. It's something that'll always be just a little flawed.

Planting a flower's like opening a book, because either way you're starting something. And your garden's your library.

Take a few minutes.""No. He's already had more of my time than he was entitled to."Yes, he thought as she walked out of his office. Very much like her grandmother.

All he'd learned was that love was a jewel with too many facets to count. Strength and weakness running side by side through it. And that no one could give or take it with any less than an open hand.

Do you see that out there? The strange, unfamiliar light? It's called the sun. Let's go get us a little.

The tune was sad, as the best of Ireland was, melancholy and lovely as a lover's tears.

She walked with a ghost of herself, one full of potential and possibility. One who was fearless. Where had that girl gone?

But when two people feel something, they ought to respect that enough to figure it out

know what you want, work to get it, then value it once you have it.

love wasn't the soft, silky words the poets spoke of. Love,with it's twin edges, was the one factor that weakened so many women, that pushed them to compromised their own wants, their own needs for the needs and wants of another.

People in hell want snowcones.

He wanted to be a poet,' someone else put in while Maggie hugged Tim and patted his back. 'Said he'd only lacked the words to be one.

A woman with romance in her life lived as grandly as a queen, because her heart was treasured.

That woman doesn't have the sense God gave a retarded flea.

Some prefer the wildness. Some the calm. There's enough of both in the world for everyone to have their choice. And enough time for any to change their mind.

A marriage is a delicate thing, Maggie, a balance of two hearts and two hopes. Sometimes the weight's just too heavy on the one side, and the other can't lift to it.

Survivors lived with their mistakes.

There was nothing like a Saturday - unless it was the Saturday leading up to the last week of school and into summer vacation. That of course was all the Saturdays of your life rolled into one big shiny ball.

Love can really screw you up before you learn to live with it.

Shannon: Only the living suffered. Only they were riddled with guilt and regret and unanswered questions.

In the summer of 80, Silhouette bought my first book.

I'd rather lie bare-assed naked on the sidewalk and be trampled by tourists from South Dakota than be an accountant.

Dinner's in one hour. If you're not back, sitting at the table, I'll beat you all unconscious with a spatula.