The one thing that I always got positive reinforcement for from teachers, who really changed my life, was the written word.

the separation of church and state grew out of a desire, not so much to protect government from religion, but to protect religion from government.

If you want to write what the world is about, you have to write details...real life is in the dishes. Real life is pushing strollers up the street, folding T-shirts, the alarm clock going off early and you dropping into bed exhausted every night. That's real life.

Sometimes I remind myself that I almost skipped the party, that I almost went to a different college, that the whim of a minute could have changed everything and everyone. Our lives, so settled, so specific, are built on happenstance.

Fashions in bigotry come and go. The right thing lasts.

There's no greater happiness than doing something every day that you love, that you feel you do in a satisfactory fashion, and which both supports and gives you time to support your family. I felt so lucky to have all that.

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