She said that her father's death had been the hardest thing in her life. "We are all children until our fathers die.

You did the best you could," and she seemed to believe I had. I said, "I've just been going through the motions," using the expression my father had after he'd watched my first tennis lesson. "Sweetie," she said, "that's what a lot of life is.

Before college, I hadn't voluntarily read anything that might be called literature; I didn't think I'd understand it; I never seemed to understand my English teacher's interpretations of what we read.

We are all children until our fathers die.

You have to shrink yourself to fit into this little life with him.

I feel in some ways I've had a difficult life. And it makes me the kind of writer I am, in what I value, what I respect, what I hold dear.

I live by Edith Whartons rule to get rid of anything neither useful nor beautiful. So I put the TV out on the street.