I quickly learned that motherhood was a high wire act sometimes performed without a net.

My mother used to do all the things that were important to her after midnight. ... Sometimes I'd sneak downstairs and see her knitting, or reading, or writing letters. I'd think of her as a thief, stealing the tail end of the day, the hours nobody else wanted or used.

It was important, I know, for my father as a product of his times not to be vulnerable, so he chose, and I can't say that I blame him, to live his life rather than create it.

To my father, who told me the stories that matter. To my mother, who taught me to remember them.

Love is going to replace life and from then on it's all smooth sailing. Love will replace life.

Novelists have to love humanity to write anything worthwhile. Poets have to love themselves.

I am a stranger to half measures.