I write so much because my cat sits on my lap. She purrs so I don't want to get up. She's so much more calming than my husband.

None of the rest of my life figures here.

Novels begin, not on the page, but in meditation and day-dreaming - In thinking, not writing.

The innocence of such children doesn't answer our deepest questions about this vale of tears to which we are condemned, but it helps to dispel them. That is the secret to family life.

Later, her first intense, serious love affair, yes then she'd lost something more tangible, if undefinable: her heart? her independence? her control of, definition of, self? That first true loss, the furious bafflement of it. And never again quite so assured, confident.

I think whenever we think of our hometowns, we tend to think of very specific people: with whom you rode on the school bus, who was your next door neighbor you were playing with, who your girlfriend was. It's always something very specific.

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.