To think is not always to see.

As a biologist, I can't think of myself as anything but an animal among animals and plant.

A miscarriage is a natural and common event. All told, probably more women have lost a child from this world than haven't. Most don't mention it, and they go on from day to day as if it hadn't happened, so people imagine a woman in this situation never really knew or loved what she had. But ask her sometime: how old would your child be now? And she'll know.

I didn't study writing in school, I studied biology as an undergraduate and graduate student. So I think that I write fiction in the scientific way. I love invention, obviously; I love creation of character. But I do feel very rooted in the real world, even in the way that I create characters.

Libraries are the one American institution you shouldn't rip off.

It's one thing to carry your life wherever you go. Another thing to always go looking for it somewhere else.

Now I'm starting to think he wasn't supposed to be my whole life, he was just this doorway to me.