I sometimes think that courage is the thing that you need more than any other thing. It's fear that cripples us. It's fear that accounts for racism, it's fear that accounts for sexism, for xenophobia.

We are writers. We danced with words, as children, in what became familiar patterns. The words became our friends and our companions, and without even saying it aloud, a thought danced with them: I can do this. This is who I am.

The reason child care is such a loaded issue is that when we talk about it, we are always tacitly talking about motherhood. And when we're talking about motherhood we're always tacitly assuming that child care must be a very dim second to full-time mother care.

I've always had a certain facility with words.

I really feel like if you can get past your fear, if you can say, "Uh-uh, I'm afraid to do that and I'm going to do it anyhow," that that's really the way to have a satisfying life moving forward. I think I had that kind of fearlessness even as a young person. It wasn't tempered by experience or wisdom, but it took me a long way.

Your children make it impossible to regret your past. They're its finest fruits. Sometimes the only ones.

Women writers of all people should know better than to pigeonhole women, put them in little groups, the smart one, the sweet one.