We're here to get each other through this thing, whatever it is.

Writing was a spiritual exercise for my father, the only thing he really believed in.

And if you're lucky enough to survive going crazy and get back to the point where you can pass for normal, it builds a question into the rest of your life. You have to forgive people for wondering, 'How all right can he be?'

None of us are entirely well, and none of us are irrecoverably sick.

Life for the unwell is discontinuous and unpredictable. Things just come out of nowhere. People try but mostly do a lousy job of taking care of you.

I didn't like the '60s because it was too important what people who had nothing to do with the war thought about it.

I'm not an expert on the Middle East or terrorism or the use of military force or politics. It's all I can do to know a little bit about how to help people raise their kids and what to do when they get sick. When a war happens, I just hope it gets over with quickly so that how we take care of children becomes more important again.