Yet what keeps me from dissolving right now into a complete fairy-tale shimmer is this solid truth, a truth which has veritably built my bones over the last few years--I was not rescued by a prince; I was the administrator of my own rescue.

Whatever this feeling is - this is what I have been praying for. And this is also what I have been praying to.

The story he [Todd Willingham] told me was this: He woke up to a fire. He ran out of the house and couldn't run back in to save his children, and that was enough to get me interested. ... There's a writer in me that's like, ... this is a great story. ... I have a good friend, who was my neighbor at the time, and I told her about it. ... She had been a reporter, and she was like, "Let's go investigate it."

At some point, you gotta let go, and sit still, and allow contentment to come to you.

As a writer, you always read in two minds: You read as a reader and you enjoy it, and you look at it as a writer, and you just admire the architecture and the construction.

[Italian men] are like show poodles. Sometimes they look so good I want to applaud.

There's a wonderful old Italian joke about a poor man who goes to church every day and prays before the statue of a great saint,'Dear saint-please, please, please...give me the grace to win the lottery.' This lament goes on for months. Finally the exasperated statue come to life, looks down at the begging man and says in weary disgust,'My son-please, please, please...buy a ticket.