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.

In a perfect world, probably we'd never yell, we'd just be firm and dispassionate. But of course, everyone yells at their children.

I love the novel of 'The English Patient'; I think it's a profoundly beautiful novel. I love the movie of 'The English Patient'; I think it's a profoundly beautiful movie. And they're totally different. You accept each on its own terms, and that's kind of the ideal.

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.

I wish I could view the belly that oozes over the top of my pants as a badge of maternal honor. I do try. I make sure that the women whose looks I admire all have sufficient fat reserves to survive a famine, and I make a lot of snide comments about the skeletal likes of Lara Flynn Boyle and Paris Hilton.

Why is it that loving something provides such little protection from betrayal?

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.