I can't wait for both my daughters to be old enough to read all my books. I loved it every time I saw my parents acting like more than just my parents. And I'm looking forward to that with my daughters too. I am looking forward to having them discover me as someone completely other than their mother.

It is the calm and silent waters that drown you.

If a woman is worth remembering,' said my grandmother, 'there is no need to have her name carved in letters.

I'm just melancholy by nature, and a lot of that gets into my writing.

The past is like the hair on our head. I moved to New York when I was twelve, but you always have this feeling that wherever you come from, you physically leave it, but it doesn't leave you.

You learned in school that you have pencils and paper only because the trees gave themselves in unconditional sacrifice.

I remember reading an interview with a writer who said that in nonfiction if you have one lie it sort of messes it up. But in fiction the real details give you so much more credibility, because people do so much research just to write fiction. In fiction you're trying to recreate something lifelike.