[Christmas] holidays are a heavy, heavy time. We make light of them with our red and green and our stockings and candy canes, but people think heavy thoughts over the holidays because that's when you're thinking about family. Are we close? Or are we not as close as other people?

All of us are richer and more fascinating and more complex than we can ever know.

God, I felt certain, did not mind that I didn’t press my hands together to pray. I was casual, but I was sincere. I knew that God existed as the Correct Answer inside my chest.

Imperfections are attractive when their owners are happy with them.

There is no such thing as too ordinary to write about, whether that's life or a scene in a novel. What's interesting to people, whether it's memoir or fiction, is the truth.

Self-pity is the bestiality of emotions: it absolutely disgusts people. When you're feeling pity for yourself, and somebody says to you 'You think maybe it's time for the pity party to be over? You should stop feeling sorry for yourself and try to think positive,' it makes you wish you could saw their head off.

Long marriages have ended in ruin over tiny and insignificant grievances that were never properly aired and instead grew into a brittle barnacle of hatred.