I have spent a good many years since―too many, I think―being ashamed about what I write. I think I was forty before I realized that almost every writer of fiction or poetry who has ever published a line has been accused by someone of wasting his or her God-given talent. If you write (or paint or dance or sculpt or sing, I suppose), someone will try to make you feel lousy about it, that's all.

It's best to have your tools with you. If you don't, you're apt to find something you didn't expect and get discouraged.

When I knew I was going to be able to write full time, I wondered, "What's going to happen to the relationships within my family?" Are they going to change? Is it going to be the kind of deal where you say, "I can't take this! Get me out of here! I can't stand these screaming kids!" The way it turned out was, I was able to change the diapers okay, after I stuck the pin through my fingers a few times. I had a dawning realization that children are not particularly hard to deal with.

Lover," she whispers, and closes her eyes. It falls upon her. Love is like dying.

Now panic beats and flutters inside my skull like a flock of starlings locked in an attic.

We're news junkies in my house.

The most important things are the hardest to say