(About parenting:) ... all that tedium, broken up by little spurts of high drama.

Ever consider what pets must think of us? I mean, here we come back from a grocery store with the most amazing haul - chicken, pork, half a cow. They must think we're the greatest hunters on earth!

I read so I can live more than one life in more than one place.

But what I hope for from a book - either one that I write or one that I read - is transparency. I want the story to shine through. I don't want to think of the writer.

It seems to me that since I've had children, I've grown richer and deeper. They may have slowed down my writing for a while, but when I did write, I had more of a self to speak from.

It is not how much you love someone, but who you are when you are with him.

The Amateur Marriage grew out of the reflection that of all the opportunities to show differences in character, surely an unhappy marriage must be the richest.

It is very difficult to live among people you love and hold back from offering them advice.

Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person.

People always call it luck when you've acted more sensibly than they have.

The hardest novel to write was Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant.

Kindness: It's ours to share.

Don't let the circle you keep drive your life around in circles.

If you are against abortions, don't have one.

When a man no longer confuses himself with the definition of himself that others have given him, he is at once universal and unique.

There are plenty of things in vaults that didn't sell in its time. So much stuff. But slowly these companies start to get a hint that these things have some value.

It's no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.

Prison, blood, death, create enthusiasts and martyrs, and bring forth courage and desperate resolution.

The beginning of pride and hatred lies in worldly desire, and the strength of your desire if from habit. When an evil tendency becomes confirmed by habit, rage is triggered when anyone restrains you.

The time has come for a public-private community partnership to fix this country and put it back to work.

My hair is a wild, untamable beast! I like letting it grow; my bangs grow whatever way they want and I kind of follow their rule. So side bangs, poof bangs - it's kind of unpredictable.