When I'm reading, wherever I am, I'm always somewhere else.

It's life. You don't figure it out. You just climb up on the beast and ride.

Maybe people are more like the earth than we know. Maybe they have fault lines that sooner or later are going to split open under pressure.

Good enough is good enough. Perfect will make you a big fat mess every time.

Life is short but it is wide. This too shall pass.

I believe that illness has led me to a life of gratitude, so I consider Lyme disease at this point in my life to be a blessing in disguise.

How wide and sweet and wild motherhood and sisterhood can be.

I value humor, kindness, and the ability to tell a good story far more than money, status, or the kind of car someone drives.

I want to lay up like that, to float unstructured, without ambition or anxiety. I want to inhabit my life like a porch.

I never claimed to be a low-maintenance gal, but when I'm writing, it's particularly challenging. I lose things constantly: my watch, my glasses, my papers, my mind.

A scent that disturbs me and delights me. It smells like ripe pears, vetiver, a bit of violet and something else- something spicy almost biting and exotic.

She had been given a wonderful gift: life. Sometimes it was cruelly taken away too soon, but it's what you did with it that counted, not how long it lasted.

What goes on in our head solely determines the level at which we function in society, our physical health, and the degree of our mental and emotional stability and maturity.

To do more, is not necessarily to do better.

I have always found it difficult to wait for things - whether it was to see my father or sailor brother, Alan, again after their long sea trips, or the chance of a better job, or even new curtains.

Even when you cherish democratic ideals, it is never easy to turn them into effective democratic institutions. This process will take decades.

There is no one right now in my judgment that can unite the Black electorate in such a way to present our agenda to a nominee to have them forthrightly address our concerns.

If I were a food, I'd be a Chili because you know.. I'm hot.

It's no secret - if you know me, have ever met me or have shared a meal with me - that I'm a passionate environmentalist.

Its very hard trying to talk to an actor about how they should deliver lines, or cut their hair, unless it comes from a place of a strong point of view.