When you study postpartum depression, there is a very clear understanding that in communities where you see more support, there is less depression.

In my experience, staying in a marriage that my ex and I both agreed had all its best moments behind it was epically depressing.

It is a great paradox and a great injustice that writers write because we fear death and want to leave something indestructible in our wake and, at the same time, are drawn to all the things that kill: whiskey and cigarettes, unprotected sex, and deep-fried burritos.

With each beat, the heart pumps nearly three ounces of blood into the arteries--seventy-five to ninety gallons an hour when the body is at rest.

My own habit had always been to write about the things that ticked me off in a given day. If I kept a journal at all, I kept it to vent.

I think there are different kinds of happiness. We know when we're happy a lot of the time, but then there are those moments that have more of an afterglow, when the happiness has more depth.

A lot of women make choices based on how they saw their mother's choices working out, how they saw the choices of the women elders in their lives working out. There's some rebellion in that, but there's also some deep reflection.