I would advise any beginning writer to write the first drafts as if no one else will ever read them - without a thought about publication - and only in the last draft to consider how the work will look from the outside.

There is no true life. Your true life is the one you end up with, whatever it may be. You just do the best you can with what you've got.

The Amateur Marriage grew out of the reflection that of all the opportunities to show differences in character, surely an unhappy marriage must be the richest.

I suspect that marriage is like parenthood: every last one of us is an amateur at it.

In real life I avoid all parties altogether, but on paper I can mingle with the best of them

Ever consider what pets must think of us? I mean, here we come back from a grocery store with the most amazing haul - chicken, pork, half a cow. They must think we're the greatest hunters on earth!

I was standing in the schoolyard waiting for a child when another mother came up to me. Have you found work yet? she asked. Or are you still just writing?