So many women today have become so focused on their children, they've developed these romantic entanglements with their children's lives, and the husbands are secondary. They're left out. And the romantic focus is on the children.

I expend far too much of my maternal energies on guilt and regret.

Most writers spend their lives standing a little apart from the crowd, watching and listening and hoping to catch that tiny hint of despair, that sliver of malice, that makes them think, 'Aha, here is the story.'

You can take the babushka off the Jewish mother and dress her up in a pair of Seven jeans and Marc Jacobs sling-backs, but she's still going to expect a passel of grandkids.

I feed my kids organic food and milk, but I've also been known to buy the odd Lunchable. My kids are not allowed to watch TV during the week, but on weekends even the 2-year-old veges out to 'The Simpsons.

It's hard to separate your remembered childhood and its emotional legacy from the childhoods that are being lived out in your house, by your children. If you're lucky, your kids will help you make that distinction.

I was a federal public defender during the most important years of the drug war. I saw people go to jail for nothing, and go to jail for a long time.