If you ask me, when something extraordinary shows up in your life in the middle of the night, you give it a name and make it the best home you can.

You can’t replace people you love with other people…But you can trust that you’re not going to run out of people to love.

A woman knows she can walk away from a pot to tend something else and the pot will go on boiling; if she couldn't this world would end at once.

It's a funny thing: people often ask how I discipline myself to write. I can't begin to understand the question. For me, the discipline is turning off the computer and leaving my desk to do something else.

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

He was getting that look he gets, oh boy, like Here comes Moses tromping down off of Mount Syanide with ten fresh ways to wreck your life.

My life is a pitiful, mechanical thing without a past, like a little wind-up car, ready to run in any direction someone points me.