Here's a habit I never thought I'd develop: I gravitate to anything online that's marked 'most popular' or 'most e-mailed.' And I hate myself a little bit every time I do.

Orchid hunting is a mortal occupation.

I think of myself as something of a connoisseur of procrastination, creative and dogged in my approach to not getting things done.

Living in a rural setting exposes you to so many marvelous things - the natural world and the particular texture of small-town life, and the exhilarating experience of open space.

You have to simply love writing, and you have to remind yourself often that you love it.

Libraries are what is best about us as a society: open, exciting, rich, informative, free, inclusive, engaging.

One of the very best reasons for having children is to be reminded of the incomparable joys of a snow day.

A snow day literally and figuratively falls from the sky, unbidden, and seems like a thing of wonder.

An ordinary life examined closely reveals itself to be exquisite and complicated and exceptional, somehow managing to be both heroic and plain.

There's a marvelous sense of mastery that comes with writing a sentence that sounds exactly as you want it to.

Even after I'd published three books and had been writing full-time for twenty years, my father continued to urge me to go to law school.

A busy life is often full of nonsense but empty of essence.

My boyfriend is named Percocet, " I say. "We're very close. I even went to Europe with him last summer.

Whatever you is, Onion, " he said, "be it full.

Alma had been falling in love with a crazy terrier that thought “stay” mean to take off like a rocket. Gaby knew he’d already taken off with Alma’s heart.

I sewed good wishes and thoughts into my garments, especially so if they were wedding or graduation dresses.

It is a high patriotic duty that we support and sustain the men who have been placed in position of difficulty, burden, responsibility, and even danger as the result of our suffrages.

There are some things which cannot be learned quickly, and time, which is all we have, must be paid heavily for their acquiring.

I did an HBO movie called Undefeated that I directed. It was too hard.

I esteem it above all things necessary to distinguish exactly the business of civil government from that of religion and to settle the just bounds that lie between the one and the other.

To reach a goal you have never before attained, you must do things you have never before done.