I learned about sex pretty early when I was, I remember, my friend Amanda DeLauro explained it to me when I was six and then I went home and I told my parents, "Oh my God, Amanda said this ridiculous thing, can you believe how stupid this is? She's insane.

But ambition is a funny thing: it creeps in when you least expect it and keeps you moving, even when you think you want to stay put.

I feel prettier with a naked face and ChapStick. But a good haircut makes a huge difference.

I always imagined that having a baby is something that I'm going to keep in a private place, but maybe my curse is that all I'm going to want to do is tell everybody about what my birth process was like and what my children's nightmares are.

I shared a bed with my sister, Grace, until I was seventeen years old. She was afraid to sleep alone and would begin asking me around 5:00 P.M. every day whether she could sleep with me. I put on a big show of saying no, taking pleasure in watching her beg and sulk, but eventually I always relented. Her sticky, muscly little body thrashed beside me every night as I read Anne Sexton, watched reruns of SNL, sometimes even as I slipped my hand into my underwear to figure some stuff out.

I’m not super thin, but I’m thin, for like, Detroit

I took "Forever" [by Judy Blume] to the bathroom to read [when I was eight] and then I heard my mom coming so I stuck it under the toilet and went running out. And I went back later to check for it. And it was gone.