our sons and daughters are only passing through. ... If we are lucky, they always will consider our home their harbor, but they are headed out to the open sea, almost from the first.

When someone you love that much leaves you behind there isn't as much of you left to die when your own time comes.

Here is how it is for women. We become our schedules. That starts to feel good. Then it starts to feel necessary. Then it starts to feel like everything.

Being wanted is the tender heel of everything human.

Friendship for me is made from a tapestry of personalities, each of whom shares a part of all I care about.

I do a great deal of research. I don’t want anyone to say, ‘That could not have happened.’ It may be fiction, but it has to be true.

Cats regard people as warm-blooded furniture.