Human beings like variety, and they also like partnership . . . these are scientific values we can point to.

I had no idea that mothering my own child would be so healing to my own sadness from my childhood.

When AIDS was at its most brutal, frightening, my-God-what-are-we-going-to-do era, that was when vampire stories and stories about blood and trust swept the literary world.

Photographs have always been the tar baby of censors and obscenity laws. Literature can certainly (if it's any good) conjure up the most pornographic imagination. But photographs dare to be real. No matter how contrived or constructed they are, there's that damn body staring you in the face.

I think moms need to share information on a regular, intimate basis.

Now I have to have the biggest P.O. box in the entire post office to get all the manuscripts coming in.

I'm like the kid in kindergarten; I really do send valentines to everyone.