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.

Anybody can become a widow. There aren't any special qualifications. It happens in less time than it takes to draw a breath. It doesn't require the planning, for example, that it takes to become a wife or a mother or any of the other ritual roles of womanhood.

Cats regard people as warm-blooded furniture.

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

Work is a slice of your life. It's not the entire pizza.

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.

Being wanted is the tender heel of everything human.