Romanticizing the act of writing or any other art is not very helpful to the artist or the art. It's much better if one simply does.

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

One of the things about parents and children is that there is no way that you go through this without there being mutual anger.

A woman whose smile is open and whose expression is glad has a kind of beauty no matter what she wears.

How deep is our desire to do better than our mothers--to bring daughters into adulthood strong and fierce yet loving and gentle, adventurous and competitive but still nurturing and friendly, sweet yet sharp. We know as working women that we can't quite have it all, but that hasn't stopped us from wanting it all for them.

I think our material is our lives. That's part of being a modern writer, and we have to use it.

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.