Our holiday food splurge was a small crate of tangerines, which we found ridiculously thrilling after an eight-month abstinence from citrus.... Lily hugged each one to her chest before undressing it as gently as a doll. Watching her do that as she sat cross-legged on the floor one morning in pink pajamas, with bliss lighting her cheeks, I thought: Lucky is the world, to receive this grateful child. Value is not made of money, but a tender balance of expectation and longing.

Beginning a novel is always hard. It feels like going nowhere. I always have to write at least 100 pages that go into the trashcan before it finally begins to work. It's discouraging, but necessary to write those pages. I try to consider them pages -100 to zero of the novel.

In the places that call me out, I know I'll recover my wordless childhood trust in the largeness of life and its willingness to take me in.

I’ve seen how you can’t learn anything when you’re trying to look like the smartest person in the room.

Every time I step onto an airplane, I turn to the right and take a good, hard stare into the maw of the engine. I don't know what I'm looking for. I just do it.

Sometimes the strength of motherhood is greater than natural laws.

...nothing momentous comes in this world unless it comes on the shoulders of kindness.