Writing is a lonely job, unless you're a drinker, in which case you always have a friend within reach.

My mother missed having dinner with Lyndon Johnson because she couldn't find the right hat to wear. While my father went off to the white house to break bread with the President, my mother, who's not a things and stuff person, stayed at the hotel and tried on 10 different hats and missed dinner.

I'm not a Luddite, but I'm outside more than I'm on my computer. We have a micro-farm - it's a step up from a garden. We have a pretty extensive vineyard. We grow about 60 percent of our own food, make our own wine, have chickens for eggs.

I believe the death of Bobby Kennedy was in many ways the death of decency in America. I think it was the death of manners and formality, the death of poetry and the death of a dream.

Since the beginning of time, every child on the planet has endeavored to please their parents.

We are all wonderful, beautiful wrecks. That's what connects us-that we're all broken, all beautifully imperfect.

We need to risk, we need to dare to risk and fail greatly because that's the only way we grow.