Friendship needs both confidences and confidence in the other's outstretched hand.

A woman whose smile is open and whose expression is glad has a kind of beauty no matter what she wears.

Grief is in two parts. The first is loss. The second is the remaking of life.

Some people who think they are in unhappy marriages are just in unhappy bodies.

A person who has no secrets is a liar. We always fold ourselves away from others just enough to preserve a secret or two, something that we cannot share without destroying our inner landscape.

People always tell me either A. you love him. B. you hate him. My usual answer? C. All of the above.

I am not a perfect friend, and it is impossible not to rebuff or be rebuffed if you move about the world.

I've told the same story twelve different ways, but I think that's just part of what writers do. Once may not be enough.

What other people think of me is not really my major concern in life. What other people think of what I write is another matter.

I have two writer daughters, and a psychoanalyst daughter, and a lawyer daughter, and they wish we didn't write, I'm sure, but we write. If we were a painting family, we would paint.

You really can't say things that upset someone in print and expect them to be nice and leave you their money. That's just not reasonable.

Status will get you nowhere. Only an open heart will allow you to float equally between everyone.

It is natural to be impacted more deeply by pain than by pleasure.

Challenges are lessons to be learned, then overcome.

[T]he atoms or elementary particles themselves are not real

Education can lift individuals out of poverty and into rewarding careers.

I don't wanna play this kind of cartoon character anymore.

Intimacy doesn't have all that much to do with backseats of cars. Real intimacy is brushing your teeth together.

I came from Canada when I was about 10 years old, and our family settled in Cleveland, Ohio.

When you're up against a superior enemy, sometimes it's okay to just bow out gracefully

When I finish a first draft, it's always just as much of a mess as it's always been. I still make the same mistakes every time.