Which was what love was: unmotivated respect.

Love is divine only and difficult always.

Intimacy is extremely important to me and I want it to be extremely important to the readers.

When a child walks in the room, your child or anybody else’s child, do your eyes light up? That’s what they’re looking for.

I began to realize that this idea of the lighter the better and the darker the worse was really - had an impact on sororities, on friendships, on all sorts of things, and it was stunning to me.

It was my father who could do no wrong. So I didn't think of it as, oh, look, my father's a violent man.

She had been looking all along for a friend, and it took her a while to discover that a lover was not a comrade and could never be - for a woman. And that no one would ever be that version of herself which she sought to reach out to and touch with an ungloved hand. There was only her own mood and whim, and if that was all there was, she decided to turn the naked hand toward it, discover it and let others become as intimate with their own selves as she was.