That is the mystery: Reading Henry James can yield prose that is contrary to James, yet inspired by him. Who can understand this?

My parents inspired me by their example. They both grew up in the Depression, and both of them had to quit school when they were quite young to work, because there actually was no choice. So they've always impressed me with their resilience, their good spirits, their courage. I just remember them carrying on and just doing their lives. They really made a strong impression on me.

What is a family, after all, except memories? Haphazard and precious as the contents of a catch-all drawer in the kitchen.

After love a formal feeling comes.

And that's the insult of it, how always it comes back to a woman being a "good" mother in the world's eyes or a "bad" mother, how everything in a woman's life is funneled through her body between her legs.

I've never given up. I've always kept going. I don't feel that I could afford to give up. That would be the beginning of the end.

Life and people are complex. A writer as an artist doesn't have the personality of a politician. We don't see the world that simply.