But while ignorance can make you insensitive, familiarity can also numb. Entering the second half-century of an information age, our cumulative knowledge has changed the level of what appalls, what stuns, what shocks.

The great motherhood friendships are the ones in which two women can admit [how difficult mothering is] quietly to each other, over cups of tea at a table sticky with spilled apple juice and littered with markers without tops.

Get a life. A real life. Not a manic pursuit of the next promotion, the bigger paycheck, the larger house.

When you look at the women that have made a real difference in the world throughout history, what they’ve done has almost always been defined by fearlessness. That’s something I came to at a certain point; I wish I’d come to it younger. Stop looking over your shoulder — there’s nobody who matters back there.

I don't really read what people write about me. Someone gives my novel one star; are they a troll? Are they someone who hates my politics and so has decided to do that?

The truth is that when you're writing a novel you're really living in it; you're living in the house, and you're living in the town.

Sometimes we don't see out of our peripheral vision what's coming right around the corner.