I write because I want more than one life; I insist on a wider selection. It's greed, plain and simple.

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.

Those who know how one should die knew how one should live.

People often ask if it was calling. My answer always is yes.

Treat this crisis as practice for the next crisis.

I want knowledge. Not belief. Not surmise. But knowledge. I want God to put out His hand, show His face, speak to me.

Grant that I may not pray alone with the mouth; help me that I may pray from the depths of my heart.

Europeans are quarrelsome.

FDR used to say, 'You and I are the two best actors in America'.

A lexicographer, a writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge.

I felt little awkward about taking one boyfriend to see a film starring another boyfriend.

From phones to cars to medicine, technology touches every part of our lives. If you can create technology, you can change the world.