Caroline Leavitt

Literature can allow us to experience the best side of humankind, where instead of giving up, we struggle desperately in the ruins for love, connection and hope.

I had a writing professor at Brandeis who told me I'd never make it - and when I sold my first novel a few years later, I sent him a copy!

I was a bookworm who aced every test - until third grade, when my teacher handed out a pop quiz about Jesus and the Apostles.

To increase aid to the Pakistan government when religious freedom is not upheld is tantamount to an anti-Christian foreign policy.

The first thing that inspires me is my mood, but I take inspiration from a lot of things: a rock song, a romantic movie or a specific lifestyle, like 1960s London and, of course, Italian 'dolce vita!'

You may depend upon it that he is a good man whose intimate friends are all good, and whose enemies are decidedly bad.