Writing takes a combination of sophistication and innocence; it takes conscience, our belief that something is beautiful because it is right.

Right foot, left foot, right foot, breathe.

You don't want to spend your time around people who make you hold your breath. You can't fill up when you're holding your breath. And writing is about filling up, filling up when you are empty, letting images and ideas and smells run down like water - just as writing is also about dealing with the emptiness.

I love memoirs. They are probably my favorite literary form, along with biographies. The more confessional, the better. There is so, so, so little truth in the popular culture, and I am starved and grateful for any I can find.

Nothing heals us like letting people know our scariest parts: When people listen to you cry and lament, and look at you with love, it's like they are holding the baby of you.

I'm very successful, but there are 50,000 general interest books published every year. If you don't want to read mine, there are others.

No" is a complete sentence.