Men are competent in groups that mimic the playground, incompetent in groups that mimic the family

Oh, that sound? I'm in the hot tub, reading a novel.

Many people, myself among them, feel better at the mere sight of a book.

Every first draft is perfect, because all a first draft has to do is exist.

I suspected that there were things he knew that I had been waiting all my life to learn.

In many ways, being honest about 'Huckleberry Finn' goes right to the heart of whether we can be honest about our heritage and our identity as Americans.

Even if my marriage is falling apart and my children are unhappy, there is still a part of me that says, 'God, this is fascinating!'

Take naps. Often new ideas come together when you are half asleep, but you have to train yourself to remember them.

Candy is my fuel. Ice cream, too.

But what truly horsey girls discover in the end is that boyfriends, husbands, children, and careers are the substitute-for horses

In every society, the artists will be the ones who set themselves up as contrary to whatever the society expects.

Hold on to your heart and life will give you wings.

Only through love can we obtain communion with God.

Desires collide; the wish to eat bumping up against the wish to be thin, the desire to indulge conflicting with the injunction to restrain. Small wonder food makes a woman nervous.

Perhaps fiction has, for me, served a similar purpose--what is a narrative arc if not the imposition of order on disparate events?--and perhaps it is my avid reading that has been my faith all along.

People are inspired to do remarkable things to find and be with the one they love.

A world that was crowded with people could still be a very lonely place.

It seems to me that all the things we keep in sealed boxes are both alive and dead until we open the box, that the unobserved is both there and not.

I've never turned my back on country music.

It sounded stupid, but of course everything does when you're just getting the bare bones facts, only the basics.

Writing's about getting up, getting well, and getting over. Getting happy, okay? Getting happy.