My change from girl to boy was far less dramatic than the distance anybody travels from infancy to adulthood.

Bubble gum angels swooped from top margins or scraped their wings between teeming paragraphs, maidens with golden hair dripped sea blue tears into the books spine, grape-colored whales spouted blood around a newspaper item (pasted in) listing arrivals to the endangered spieces list. Six hatchlings cried from shattered shells near an entry made on Easter. Cecilia had filled the pages with a profusion of colors and curlicues, candyland ladders and striped shamrocks.

I wanted to be an actor. My parents were not too keen on that.

She thought a writer should work harder writing a book than she did reading it.

It was amazing how it worked: the tiniest bit of truth made credible the greatest lies.

The worst thing about religion was religious people.

The daily act of writing remains as demanding and maddening as it was before, and the pleasure you get from writing - rare but profound - remains at the true heart of the enterprise. On their best days, writers all over the world are winning Pulitzers, all alone in their studios, with no one watching.