A lot of girls who turn into something remarkable start off as irrepressible, confident and a handful.

We never believe we're beautiful, no matter how many times we hear it. We never believe it until someone says it in the right way.

Traditionally, the love of reading has been born and nurtured in high school English class

I work really long days and I work seven day weeks.

Reading was like eating alone, with that same element of bingeing.

I can no more reread my own books than I can watch old home movies or look at snapshots of myself as a child. I wind up sitting on the floor, paralyzed by grief and nostalgia.

But beneath it all will run that Sicilian understanding that the underside of joy is grief, that the face of sacrifice and suffering is the dark mirror image of pleasure and enjoyment, that every moment of arrival is to be treasured and enjoyed in the full knowledge that it has brought us a moment closer to the moment of departure.