My decision to start a new one is just that, a decision, since I never get inspirations.

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.

Potential is not an endpoint but a capacity to grow and learn.

Do you know that I no longer see colors?"Jonas's heart broke.

So the world ended.And the next one began.They were infinite.They were the beginning and the ending

A celebrity, whatever I am, you get cut off sometimes from people just by circumstance.

One should never condemn what one cannot understand.

I paint the way I spread butter on pumpernickel.

For years I have endeavored to calm an impetuous tide -- laboring to make my feelings take an orderly course -- it was striving against the stream.

I focused more on sharing my gift and performing than worrying about it being a competition.

The administration needs to speak honestly with the American people. Exaggerating our progress in defeating the insurgency or in creating an Iraqi army paints a dangerous picture.

I have nothing to prove, because I am already approved.