I think on a day-to-day basis, what attracts us in coexisting with another living, evolving thing, is that you have a relationship that's different than with a piece of furniture. We experience the cycle of life through these other beings.

When you're researching you're learning. When you're writing, you're teaching.

Winter in the country is very white. There is black grit on all the shoulders of the roads and on the big mounds from the plows, and all the cars are filthy, but the fields are dazzling and untouched and pristine.

I've loved some gadgets that were not worthy, and I've loved gadgets that I would have loved more if I had waited for their developers to figure out how to really make them work, but I loved them anyway.

I can imagine a future in which real books will exist but in a more limited, particular way.

When I still lived in Manhattan, people-watching was my hobby, and I spent many Sunday afternoons eating up the scene from a window seat at a Starbucks on Broadway.

I had forgotten how thrilling a snow day is until my son started school, and as much as he loves it, he swoons at the idea of a free day arriving unexpectedly, laid out like a gift.