Is it possible that my sons-in-law will do toilets? If we raise boys to know that diapers need to be changed and refrigerators need to be cleaned, there's hope for the next generation.

It is hard to hold on to friendships when people move away to another state or to another world.

I think it is a good thing to have woman friends at every stage of life. We confide in each other, we support each other, we understand each other most of the time. Of course, sometimes we are competitive or angry or distant, too. But I do think it is important not to let the main friendships slip away in the sweep of the days.

Some people who think they are in unhappy marriages are just in unhappy bodies.

I've told the same story twelve different ways, but I think that's just part of what writers do. Once may not be enough.

My mother had died when I wrote my first book. I was twenty-seven, so it was right at the beginning of my writing life. I don't know if she had lived, if I would have done it, certainly not quite like I did. But, you can't rethink it. You wrote what you wrote, it meant something to other people, and that's your good.

I know that family life in America is a minefield, an economic trap for women, a study in disappointment for both sexes.