Things happen, and you can't make them unhappen. You don't get do-overs, you can't roll back the clock, and the only thing you can change, and the only thing it does any good to worry about, is how you let them affect you.

I didn’t feel anything but a bone-deep weariness. Like I was suddenly a hundred years old, and I knew at that moment I would have to live a hundred more years, carrying my grief around like a backpack full of stones.

If a writer writes poems and short stories and novels, but nobody ever reads them, is she really a writer?

You should be concerned about the state of your soul, not the state of your bank account.

The condom broke. I know how stupid that sounds. It's the reproductive version of the dog ate my homework.

If you put a pink cover on something, critics make a certain set of assumptions and may not even read the book. But my readers are happy with it.

But what we're really trapped by is perceptions. You think you need to lose weight for someone to love you. I think if I gain weight, no one will love me. What we really need is to just stop thinking of ourselves as bodies and start thinking of ourselves as people.