How Oprah can change your life

'She chose it because of its cover. It wasn't the current cover. It was a dark-blue background with a plane going into the air... It was very exciting, a little frightening to me...

'To me, writing is a very selfish activity. I write to please myself. I write in a daydream, which I am sure has saved me hundreds of thousands of dollars in therapy. Everything comes from somewhere, but it doesn't always come from my life. And that is one of the hardest things for readers to accept.'

Anita Shreve, author of Light on Snow, in the Times magazine