[In the aftermath of death] Small talk feels too small, big talk too enormous.

That's what makes life so hard for women, that instead of thinking that this is the way things are, we always think it's the way we are.

We've made hyper motherhood a measure of female success.

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

I grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia and one of the things I like to say is that one of the biggest impediments I had to becoming a successful writer is I had a very happy childhood.

Ever since the Evil Empire turned out to be a collection of third-world countries, Americans aligned on the far right have tried to cast gay men and lesbians as the new enemy, calculating deviants seducing the nation's young, anti-Avon ladies selling sodomy door-to-door. This simply won't wash. Just as seeing the Russians up close and personal on television humanized them, so seeing the lesbian grandmother of two little girls wearing her gold medal with pride makes the notion of otherness, much less deviance, silly and ignorant.

On social welfare the Church does so much good around the world - nuns running schools and homeless shelters, priests ministering to people who are in crisis.