It occurs to her that there is one thing about people you can never understand well enough: how entirely inside themselves they are.

It is true that I do not speak as well as I can think. But that is true of most people, as nearly as I can tell.

I have my own sheep and I literally sheer the sheep and knot sweaters for friends and family from scratch.

Like kids who only ever get socks for Christmas, but still believe with all their hearts in Santa.

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.

Literature is one of the few kinds of writing in the world that does not tell you what to buy, want, see, be, or believe. It's more like conversation, raising new questions and inspiring you to answer them for yourself.

Arguments could fill a marriage like water, running through everything, always, with no taste or color but lots of noise.