The earth is rocky and full of roots; it's clay, and it seems doomed and polluted, but you dig little holes for the ugly shriveled bulbs, throw in a handful of poppy seeds, and cover it all over, and you know you'll never see it again - it's death and clay and shrivel, and your hands are nicked from the rocks, your nails black with soil.

The worst time in any writer's life is the two months before publication. ALL writers become mental and pathetic, even those of devout faith, who have some psychological healing to lean up against, and gorgeous lives. All writers think that this time, the jig is up, and they will be exposed as frauds.

So how on earth can I bring a child into the world, knowing that such sorrow lies ahead, that it is such a large part of what it means to be human? I'm not sure. That's my answer: I'm not sure.

I wish I had thrown out the bathroom scale at age 16. Weighing yourself every morning is like waking up and asking Dick Cheney to validate your sense of inner worth.

These are pictures of the people in my family where we look like the most awkward and desperate folk you ever saw, poster children for the human condition.

Forgiveness means it finally becomes unimportant that you hit back.

The movement of grace toward gratitude brings us from the package of self-obsessed madness to a spiritual awakening.