I think that's probably the most devastating thing - when someone who is larger than life winds up a shadow of themselves in a hospital bed.

You can run but you can't hide... but I can try. I feel air catch in my lungs and I get a cramp in my side and this pain, this wonderful physical pain that I can place, reminds me that after all I am still alive.

If you end your story, it's a static work of art, a finite circle. But if you don't, it belongs to anyone's imagination. It stays alive forever.

Reason number 106 why dogs are smarter than humans: once you leave the litter, you server contact with your mothers.

Many of my books come from what if questions that I can't answer, things that I'm worried about as either a woman, a wife, a mom, an American.

The first time someone I loved left me behind...I didn't know how my family would balance. We had been such a sturdy little end table, four solid legs. I was sure we would now be off-kilter, always unstable. Until one day I looked more closely, and realized that we had simply become a stool.

I start by mulling a question and before I know it, a whole drama is unfolding in my head. Often, an idea sticks before I know what I'm going to do with it.