God doesn’t need to punish us. He just grants us a long enough life to punish ourselves.

Every betrayal contains a perfect moment, a coin stamped heads or tails with salvation on the other side.

She is inhumanly alone. And then, all at once, she isn't.

I'm widest awake as a writer doing something new, engaged in a process I'm not sure I can finish, generating at the edge of my powers. Some people bungee jump; I write.

Finally, cooking is good citizenship. It's the only way to get serious about putting locally raised foods into your diet, which keeps farmlands healthy and grocery money in the neighborhood.

Before that I was a scientist. I did research in population biology. And that's what I always go back to, it helps me to remember that people are not the end of the world, although we may be when it comes to it. We're just one species among millions in this world.

restraint equals indulgence