Was it the act of giving birth that made you a mother? Did you lose that label when you relinquished your child? If people were measured by their deeds, on the one hand, I had a woman who had chosen to give me up; on the other, I had a woman who'd sat up with me at night when I was sick as a child, who'd cried with me over boyfriends, who'd clapped fiercely at my law school graduation. Which acts made you more of a mother? Both, I realized. Being a parent wasn't just about bearing a child. It was about bearing witness to its life.

My grandmother told me that her father used to ask her a riddle: What must you break apart in order to bring a family close together? Bread, of course.

I loved Alex so much that it was easier to let him hurt me than to watch him hurt himself.

The best thing about endings is knowing that just ahead is the daunting task to start over.

Parents aren’t the people you come from. They’re the people you want to be, when you grow up.

I think there are readers out there and I don't think the book is dead. And more importantly I don't think readers have to choose between literary and commercial fiction.

How do you tell an adult that maybe everything wrong in the world stems from the fact that she's stopped believing the impossible can happen?