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

Our daily existence requires both closeness and distance, the wholeness of self, the wholeness of intimacy.

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.

I could tell it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

We grow because the clamorous, permanent presence of our children forces us to put their needs before ours. We grow because our love for our children urges us to change as nothing else in our lives has the power to do. We grow (if we're willing to grow, that is: not every parent is willing) because being a parent helps us stop being a child.

Strength is the capacity to break a chocolate bar into four pieces with your bare hands - and then eat just one of the pieces.

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