I always tell my kids that as soon as you have a secret, something about you that you are ashamed to have others find out, you have given other people the power to hurt you by exposing you.

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.

When the babies were very young, I found it difficult to write. I told myself each time that it would be different, I was used to it now, but with every child, for the first four months, I would accomplish nothing.

There is an inverse correlation between the cleanliness of a bathroom and my 3-year-old daughter's need to move her bowels.

I have made so many mistakes as a mother. But the one thing that I know I do is I make sure my children know how much I love them and they are absolutely secure in that.

I believe the approach we take to talking to our kids about drugs can, in some cases, mean the difference between life and death. So my approach is really simple: I just don't want them to die. And I want them to be able to save someone's life if they see someone die.

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