I was influenced by my children's education in Quaker schools in the Philadelphia area. I experienced a spiritual awakening and became a Christian, was baptized, and joined a church.

My parents and I always put great emphasis on telling stories that appeal to a child's sense of humor.

Families are where children live. Almost everything they experience is in the context of family life.

When I die, I hope to go to Heaven, whatever the Hell that is.

It seems to me that the Iraqis laid down a lot of the arms that we gave to them. So that doesn't seem to be the solution.

I got a lovely check today from being a writer that I earned by sitting at home. That's rewarding.

To have too much forethought is the part of a wretch; to have too little is the part of a fool.

My writing is consistently influenced by everything I watched and listened to growing up, so it's just this crazy collage of everything.

I like America to some extent.

I wear all my T-shirts from Helmut Lang with the holes in the elbows, which people always speak of. When my husband gets a hole in his sweater, at his elbow, he says, "It's very Helmut Lang!"

Yes, there was music after all. The sound of the swamp rose up to him. The sound of frogs and crickets, of birds and 'gators, of life in every puddle and pond and knothole and leaf. I Travel By Night

Even my father's name is Sachin Tendulkar.

There is no society for the prevention of cruelty to women.