Food is the rare moral arena in which the ethical choice is generally the one more likely to make you groan with pleasure.

It's a great freedom to give up on love, and get on with everything else.

The power is in the balance: we are our injuries, as much as we are our successes.

Quit smoking in the hope of growing old. It takes a long time to write. People go to books for wisdom and older authors tend to have more of it.

For Lou Ann, life itself was a life-threatening enterprise.

I struggle with confidence, every time. I’m never completely sure I can write another book. Maybe my scope is too grand, my questions too hard, surely readers won’t want to follow me here. A novel is like a cathedral, it knocks you down to size when you enter into it.

Be still, and the world is bound to turn herself inside out to entertain you. Everywhere you look, joyful noise is clanging to drown out quiet desperation.