This is how I learn most of what I know about my children and their friends: by sitting in the driver's seat and keeping quiet.

The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.

I would be the most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves.

A finished person is a boring person.

There is a little boy inside the man who is my brother... Oh, how I hated that little boy. And how I love him too.

After all those years as a woman hearing 'not thin enough, not pretty enough, not smart enough, not this enough, not that enough,' almost overnight I woke up one morning and thought, 'I'm enough.'

Books are the plane, and the train, and the road. They are the destination, and the journey. They are home.

There is a lot of talk now about metal detectors and gun control. Both are good things. But they are no more a solution than forks and spoons are a solution to world hunger.

Look back, to slavery, to suffrage, to integration and one thing is clear. Fashions in bigotry come and go. The right thing lasts.

You are the only person alive who has sole custody of your life ... Your entire life ... Not just the life of your mind, but the life of your heart. Not just your bank account, but your soul.

America is a country that seems forever to be toddler or teenager, at those two stages of human development characterized by conflict between autonomy and security.

It's not selfish to love yourself, take care of yourself, and make your happiness a priority. It's necessary.

New York is the great stone desert.

I always bounce my legs when I'm sitting.

Every human being has appetites difficult to control but far fewer have humility, gentleness, and an awareness of their weaknesses.

Without form, the sensitiveness vanishes.

My mind is just as open as it ever was, professor. But it's a scientific mind, and there's no place in it for superstitions.

A career is a job that has gone on too long.

I don't feel depressed. I feel elated.

Always cut the cards...and smile when you lose.

I made a decision when I was in school that I'd have a lot of male friends.