I've seen prayers answered. But often, in my experiences, if you get what you pray for, you've really shortchanged yourself.

Raising a child, whether or not it is yours, is like Nautilus of the heart and soul.

If your wife locks you out of the house, you don't have a problem with your door.

No matter how people mess with you or let you down, or how you let yourself down, a good book means that when you get in bed that night, you have a good hour. I feel like you pay all day for that hour. That's what books mean to me. I can open this two-dimensional , flat white page with squiggly little black marks on them, and someone has created this world that you're going to enter into.

Alice Adams wrote a sweet note to me after my first novel came out when I was 26, and I was so blown away that I sent her a bunch of stamps by return mail. I have no idea what I was thinking. It was a star-struck impulse.

Some people may have thought that this book was too personal, too confessional. But what these people think about me is none of my business.

Small is how blessings, healing, progress and increase occur.