Barack Obama presents as kind of a cool character, and I think that that's his natural personality.

Loss as muse. Loss as character. Loss as life.

When I write a novel, I have what I think of as an icon that helps get me into the world of the book.

It is difficult for me to imagine the same dedication to women's rights on the part of the kind of man who lives in partnership with someone he likes and respects, and the kind of man who considers breast-augmentation surgery self-improvement.

Trying to be perfect may be inevitable for people who are smart and ambitious and interested in the world and its good opinion...What is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.

Your kids are launched. You love your work but you understand how to place it in the panorama of the rest of your life. There's this line in the book, and when I wrote it I thought yes, that's it - if you think of life as a job, maybe by the time you get to, say, in my case, 60, you've finally gotten good at it.

A writer is always working with whatever she's managed to store in the brainpan or puzzle out about the world.