I think there are crossroads in our lives when we make grand, sweeping decisions without even realizing it.

When we're awake, we see what we need to see. When we're asleep, we see what is really there.

I sometimes wonder if it is just me, or if there are other women who figure out where they are supposed to be by going nowhere.

By definition, love made you better than good enough; it redefined perfection to include your traits, instead of excluding them.

Fiction allows for moral questioning, but through the back door. Personally, I like books that make you think - books you're still wondering about three days after you finish them; books you hand to a friend and say "Read this, so we can talk about it."

That's the paradox of loss: How can something that's gone weigh us down so much?

And that was the greatest heartbreak of all- no matter how spectacular we want our children to be, no matter how perfect we pretend they are, they are bound to disappoint. As it turns out, kids are more like us than we think: damaged, through and through.