Wow, so much of the way I've transacted my life... so much of the results that I'm happy about are because of what Daddy did.

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.

If I waited long enough and said, "Okay, so what you're saying is you liked your life a lot better when you were 30?" everybody would get real quiet and then admit that that wasn't the case, that they really felt like they were sort of growing into themselves in a way.

My father really, really pushed me to excel in a way that I resented for years and then realized had really worked for me.

When you really want to say no, say no. You can't do everything - or at least not well.

There's a certain kind of conversation you have from time to time at parties in New York about a new book. The word "banal" sometimes rears its by-now banal head; you say "underedited," I say "derivative." The conversation goes around and around various literary criticisms, and by the time it moves on one thing is clear: No one read the book; we just read the reviews.

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