I expend far too much of my maternal energies on guilt and regret.

If you focus all of your emotional passion on your children and you neglect the relationship that brought that family into existence... eventually, things can go really, really wrong.

Courage is impulsive; it is narcissism tempered with nihilism.

One of the darkest, deepest shames so many of us mothers feel nowadays is our fear that we are Bad Mothers, that we are failing our children and falling far short of our own ideals.

If a good mother is one who loves her child more than anyone else in the world, I am not a good mother. I am in fact a bad mother. I love my husband more than I love my children.

Roaring like a tiger turns some children into pianists who debut at Carnegie Hall but only crushes others. Coddling gives some the excuse to fail and others the chance to succeed.

You can take the babushka off the Jewish mother and dress her up in a pair of Seven jeans and Marc Jacobs sling-backs, but she's still going to expect a passel of grandkids.

In a perfect world I think we would microdose with LSD instead of giving teenagers Adderall. But I'd like to see it studied first.

For a couple of months there I was shrieking like a banshee.

Why is it that loving something provides such little protection from betrayal?

Let's all commit ourselves to the basic civility of minding our own business. Failing that, let's go back to a time when we were nasty and judgmental, but only behind one another's backs.

Death is our friend, precisely because it brings us into absolute and passionate presence with all that is here, that is natural, that is love.

My faith is a tool I employ, a metaphorical context I find apt, but it is inert until placed in a hand that needs it.

There have been so many great moments, and I feel so blessed every day.

Art flourishes where there is a sense of adventure, a sense of nothing having been done before, of complete freedom to experiment.

I believe education is the great equalizer.

My every decision on trade, on taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs will be made to benefit American workers and American families.

Some people collect butterflies - I love beetles.

It is well to cultivate a friendly feeling towards error, to treat it as a companion inseparable from our lives, as something having a purpose, which it truly has.

Design and color are not distinct and separate. As one paints, one draws. The more the colors harmonize, the more the design takes form. When color is at it's richest, form is at its fullest.

Italy is not a country for beginners.