I have travelled all over the world and one thing that amazes me is that I can communicate with people. My story may be different but emotionally we are all the same.

Barrabas came to us by the sea.

The fastest-growing population in the United States is the older people, because we are living much longer, healthier lives. The problem is, individuals often don't have the resources to take care of older people as they age. This is something that is happening, and we have to deal with it. It was happening also in my life.

There's basically an element of fiction in everything you remember. Imagination and memory are almost the same brain processes. When I write fiction, I know that I'm using a bunch of lies that I've made up to create some form of truth. When I write a memoir, I'm using true elements to create something that will always be somehow fictionalized.

When my daughter Paula died, I was in the deepest pain, and my mother said, "This kind of sorrow is like a long, narrow, dark channel. You have to walk this channel alone and be sure that there is light at the other ending. Just keep walking."

You are my angel and my damnation; in your presence I reach divine ecstasy and in your absence I descent to hell.

If this world is going to be a better place for our grandchildren and great-grandchildren, it will be women who make it so.