I am dismayed to realize that much of the advice I used to parcel out to aspiring writers has passed its sell-by date.

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.

How strange that we can go from friends to inseparable to hateful then casual all in one lifetime.

One would say You had not left me for a single instant. "Did you doubt it?

Like chocolate, she craved sleep and it made her life brighter, but she could do without.

When you're in hell, only a devil can point the way out.

Good therapy helps. Good friends help. Pretending that we are doing better than we are doesn't. Shame doesn't. Being heard does.

He was bare chested and in good trim. I said that just looking at him I knew there would always be an England

There is hinkiness afoot with regard to my, ah, disposition.

My child has done nothing wrong apart from being born to a mother like me

It isn't courageous to go forth when you don't know the dangers. But it's very courageous to go forth when you do.

From the moment you make a decision, you lock your thoughts in a set mold.