Loss is so paradoxical: It is at once enormous and tiny.

We have an idea - a very modern idea - that dying is undignified. But I think this is because we have the illusion that we can control our bodies and our fates.

My theory is this: Women falter when they're called on to be highly self-conscious about their talents. Not when they're called on to enact them.

I live to collect information, and I am also a perfectionist.

It's a blessing not to be alone in your grief but it's also painful to see your parents and siblings in pain.

What had happened still seemed implausible. A person was present your entire life, and then one day she disappeared and never came back. It resisted belief.

A mother, after all, is your entry into the world. She is the shell in which you divide and become a life. Waking up in a world without her is like waking up in a world without sky: unimaginable.