I was standing in the schoolyard waiting for a child when another mother came up to me. Have you found work yet? she asked. Or are you still just writing?

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.

If we spark a student's passion, we unleash a powerful force upon the world.

If I can lead a happy life, touch the lives of others in a positive way, win the respect of those that I care about - and make a few million along the way - then I have been successful.

But simply punishing the broken--walking away from them or hiding them from sight--only ensures that they remain broken and we do, too. There is no wholeness outside of our reciprocal humanity.

Blues had the pulse beat of the people who keep on going.

The Band-Aid solution is actually the best kind of solution because it involves solving a problem with the minimum amount of effort and time and cost.

The most desirable thing in life after health and modest means is leisure with dignity.

The U.S. is different from Europe and other industrial countries.

It's a big deal for me to say I'm over politics.

The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness cannot understand it

Everywhere bees go racing with the hours, / For every bee becomes a drunken lover, / Standing upon his head to sup the flowers.