You must be filled with expectancy. You must be awash in hope. You must wonder who will love you, whom you will love next.

I actually do like traveling.

One, we [with Alison McGhee] laugh a lot - that was great. Two, I enjoy writing, but it's a lonely undertaking. To have someone in the room with me is an absolute delight and makes it seem less impossible. It became a kind of comforting, joyful process.

I am single and childless, but I have lots of friends and I am an aunt to three lovely children.

There ain't no way you can hold onto something that wants to go, you understand? You can only love what you got while you got it.

And hope is like love...a ridiculous, wonderful, powerful thing.

... every time you look at the world and the people in it closely, lovingly, imaginatively, it changes you. The world, under the microscope of your attention, opens up like a beautiful, strange flower and gives itself back to you in ways you could never imagine.