It's not only children who grow. Parents do too. As much as we watch to see what our children do with their lives, they are watching us to see what we do with ours. I can't tell my children to reach for the sun. All I can do is reach for it, myself.

In the event of an oxygen shortage on airplanes, mothers of young children are always reminded to put on their own oxygen mask first, to better assist the children with theirs. The same tactic is necessary on terra firma. There's no way of sustaining our children if we don't first rescue ourselves. I don't call that selfish behavior. I call it love.

I think of myself as a realistic writer, not a creator of soap opera or melodrama.

[On home births:] In a house where there had been three people, there were now four, although no one had come in the door.

The word NO, carries a lot more meaning when spoken by a parent who also knows how to say yes.

It's not only children who grow. Parents do too. As much as we watch to see what our children do with their lives, they are watching us to see what we do with ours. I can't tell my children to reach for the sun. All I can do is reach for it, myself.

When people ask what I write about, that's what I tell them: 'The drama of human relationships.' I'm not even close to running out of material.