I remember leaving the hospital - thinking, 'Wait, are they going to let me just walk off with him? I don't know beans about babies! I don't have a license to do this.' We're just amateurs.

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.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

I grew up with just my mum and sister, so I respect women a lot.

In regard to man's final end, all the higher religions are in complete agreement. The purpose of human life is the discovery of Truth, the unitive knowledge of the Godhead.

The laws of chess do not permit a free choice: you have to move whether you like it or not.

We mostly spend those lives conjugating three verbs: to Want, to Have, and to Do.

It's a marvelous feeling when someone says I want to do this song of yours because they've connected to it. That's what I'm after.

I am here no longer just a vision birthed into this body I accept my praise, my blame, my joy, my sorrow I realize we are, in truth, the truth we seek God, perfect this very moment.

Give up meat to save the planet.

As much wisdom may be expended on a private economy as on an empire, and as much wisdom may be drawn from it.

All of living is nothing but a fervid attempt to move closer together.