The painful things seemed like knots on a beautiful necklace, necessary for keeping the beads in place.

Whatever your relationship is to your sacred tradition in the West, you have some relationship to the Bible if only through the names of the characters.

Egypt loved the lotus becuase it never dies. It is the same for people who are loved. Thus can something as insignificant as a name-two syllables, one high, one sweet- summon up the innumerable smiles, tears, sighs and dreams of a human life.

The more a daughter knows the details of her mother's life [...] the stronger the daughter.

The real Mary Poppins got lost when Hollywood turned her into a cream puff.

I tell writers to keep reading, reading, reading. Read widely and deeply. And I tell them not to give up even after getting rejection letters. And only write what you love.

As a journalist I'm comfortable doing library research, and I did a lot! I had a fellowship at Radcliff for a year which gave me access to the Harvard system.