Close friends contribute to our personal growth. They also contribute to our personal pleasure, making the music sound sweeter, the wine taste richer, the laughter ring louder because they are there.

We begin life with loss. We are cast from the womb without an apartment, a charge plate, a job or a car. We are sucking, sobbing, clinging, helpless babies.

[On writing her first poem at age eight:] An ode to my dead mother and father, who were both alive and pretty pissed off.

I don't intend to stop showing a little cleavage. Nor do I intend to stop flashing a little thigh.

I think I'll move to Australia.

Losing is the price we pay for living. It is also the source of much of our growth and gain.

When he is late for dinner and I know he must be either having an affair or lying dead in the street, I always hope he's dead.