Pay attention to the beauty surrounding you.

We are a species that needs and wants to understand who we are. Sheep lice do not seem to share this longing, which is one reason why they write so little.

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

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.

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.

There is ecstasy in paying attention. You can get into a kind of Wordsworthian openness to the world, where you see in everything the essence of holiness.

Toni Morrison said, "The function of freedom is to free someone else," and if you are no longer wracked or in bondage to a person or a way of life, tell your story. Risk freeing someone else. Not everyone will be glad that you did. Members of your family and other critics may wish you had kept your secrets. Oh, well, what are you going to do?