After my family leaves in the morning, I'll make my first coffee of the day and then I head upstairs to go to work. At least, that's my plan. I'm not going to check email. I'm not going on Facebook, or sneaking a glimpse at my Instagram feed. No. I'm not going to down that road. But with multiple devices, by the time I get upstairs [to my study] I may well have heard my iPhone ding and - it's Pavlovian.

My parents made the decision never to focus on my looks, and I had no sense of myself as beautiful.

Our minds have a tendency to wander. To duck and feint and keep us at a slight remove from the moment at hand.

There are books that a writer undertakes because she wants to go on a journey, and there are journeys a writer undertakes because she wants to write a book.

When I sit down with my notebook, when I start scribbling words across the page, I find out what I’m feeling.

When I started meditating, even doing yoga, I felt like it was hard to allow myself to develop any other kind of practice [outside of Judaism], like I was somehow being untrue to my heritage, and that was something I had to get over and was probably the greatest revelation to me.

As writers, it is our job not only to imagine, but to witness.