I don't believe in writer's block. Think about it - when you were blocked in college and had to write a paper, didn't it always manage to fix itself the night before the paper was due? Writer's block is having too much time on your hands.

when you want something so desperately, you shake with the need for it. you tell yourself that you don't need more than one sip, because it's just the taste you crave, and once it's on your tongue you will be able to make it last alifetime. you dream of it at night. you see a thousand mile-high obstacles between where you stand and what you want, and you convince yourself you have the power to hurdle them. you tell yourself this even when, leaping the first block, you wind up bruised and bloodied and flattened.

There were lies we told to save ourselves, and then there were lies we told to rescue others. What counted more, the mistruth, or the greater good?

Don't pay back in kind, pay back in kindness. If someone does wrong by you, do right by them.

I once heard someone on a bus say that this guy had gotten under her skin. And it struck me as a remarkable thought - that someone would affect you so deeply they'd always be a part of you.

I think once you sign on to be a mother, that's the only shift they offer.

I feel I'm able to get rid of any demons lurking in my psyche through my writing, which leaves me free to create all of this and to enjoy our family life, stepping away from all the fictional traumas and the dramas. If I write about family in crisis, then I won't have to live through it, I guess.