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

Friendship needs both confidences and confidence in the other's outstretched hand.

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.

When I grew up, you needed to have straight hair. It's symbolic of needing to be like everyone else, needing to look like everyone else. And what that meant was looking like the dominant ruling class in America.

You have to be a lover of books without expecting more of them than they give - a little pleasure, a little insight, a moment of escape, a deepening of your own humanity. Not much else.

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

If I were planning to be stranded on a desert island, I wouldn't take Freud's books with me, because I've already read them all.