There is no fundamental truth and there's nothing to be connected to: I just believe that [LSD] makes you feel better.

As a novelist, I mined my history, my family and my memory, but in a very specific way. Writing fiction, I never made use of experiences immediately as they happened. I needed to let things fester in my memory, mature and transmogrify into something meaningful.

States began to realize how much money they were spending on incarceration and how much money they were spending fighting this ludicrous war on drugs that was actually counterproductive.

Lots of medications work for a month, or a year, and then stop working.

Aborting my baby is the most serious of the many maternal crimes I tally in my head when I am at my lowest, when the Bad Mother label seems to fit best. Rocketship was my baby. And I killed him.

Gym class was, of course, where the strongest, best-looking kids were made captains and chose us spazzes last. More important, it was where the figures of supposed authority allowed them to do so. Forget the work our parents did molding our minds and values. Everything fell apart as soon as we put on those maroon polyester gym suits.

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