Life is made up of moments, small pieces of glittering mica in a long stretch of gray cement.

I think what saved me, as a writer, is that there are really two breaking points in my life. One was when I was 19 and my mother died, and one was when I was 31 and my first child was born. And that sort of gave me a kind of rebirth that I think has been invaluable to me as a novelist, in terms of seeing the world anew.

These are my words; this is their world, a world in which we can wear our gender on our sleeves, unabashedly, as we go about the business of thinking out loud.

Look at the view and you'll never be disappointed.

When children are small, parents should run their lives and not the other way around.

It is this that, finally, I will try to teach my sons about sex, after I've explained fertile periods and birth control and all the other mechanics that are important to understand but never really go to the heart of the matter: I believe I will say that when you sleep with someone you take off a lot more than your clothes.

If God had meant Harvard professors to appear in People magazine, She wouldn't have invented The New York Review of Books.