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.

Everything is freedom and everything is loneliness. Make your choice and let the rest fall away.

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.

I'm sure there were plenty of loving, attentive mothers in the 'me generation,' but none of them lived at my house.

Settling other people's land is an American tradition.

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.

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.