All these people keep waxing sentimental about how fabulously well I am doing as a mother, how competent I am, but I feel inside like when you're first learning to put nail polish on your right hand with your left. You can do it, but it doesn't look all that great around the cuticles.

Perfectionism means that you try not to leave so much mess to clean up. But clutter and mess show us that life is being lived.

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.

Perfectionism is a mean, frozen form of idealism, while messes are the artist's true friend.

I am skittish about relationships, as most of the marriages I've seen up close have been ruinous for one or both parties.

My heart was broken and my head was just barely inhabitable

I thought such awful thoughts that I cannot even say them out loud because they would make Jesus want to drink gin straight out of the cat dish.