Traits don't change, states of mind do.

But after a certain point in a marriage, you stopped having a certain kind of fight, Olive thought, because when the years behind you were more than the years in front of you, things were different.

The evenings grew longer; kitchen windows stayed open after dinner and peepers could be heard in the marsh. Isabelle, stepping out to sweep her porch steps, felt absolutely certain that some wonderful change was arriving in her life. The strength of this belief was puzzling; what she was feeling, she decided, was really the presence of God.

People like to think the younger generation's job is to steer the world to hell. But it's never true, is it? They're hopeful and good - and that's how it should be.

My first job was when I was about 12, cleaning houses in the afternoons for different elderly women in town. I hated it.

I don't think there was a particular book that made me want to write. They all did. I always wanted to write.

If you get divorced in New York, you go into therapy and will talk to anybody you meet on the sidewalk about it.