Loneliness is like starvation: you don't realize how hungry you are until you begin to eat.

My grandmother could never have written a memoir, so 'The Gravedigger's Daughter' is a homage to her life, and to the lives of other young women of her generation, which are so rarely articulated.

I was trying not to be happy, hopeful. I did not believe I deserved happiness or even hope, if you knew my soul.

Is there any mystery like who you finally turn out to be.

The cleaning is something I use as a reward if I get some work done. I go into a very happy state of mind when I'm vacuuming.

Nothing is accidental in the universe - this is one of my Laws of Physics - except the entire universe itself, which is Pure Accident, pure divinity.

When I wrote 'We Were The Mulvaneys,' I was just old enough to look back upon my own family life and the lies of certain individuals close to me, with the detachment of time. I wanted to tell the truth about secrets: How much pain they give, yet how much relief, even happiness we may feel when at last the motive for secrecy has passed.