Why did people try to shush trouble away as if it were an unruly child?

Things, very strange things, happen in folktales and there is never much attention given to the whys and wherefores.

But every age deserves its fashion and its forms, and no one can control what survives.

Writing, for me, is always a dance between the critical part of my brain and the subconscious.

I guess I'm drawn to stories of people whose physicality puts them on the outside of things in order to explore the ways in which an identity is formed around these prevailing attitudes.

I never know where I'm headed when I'm working on a book.

We are like flowers always reaching up towards some shred of light. I find this wondrous, nearly magical, certainly brave.

I'm interested in endurance. People persist in the face of the most excruciating hardships.

As we change, the way in which we are perceived in terms of our relevance, our value, our beauty, and sexual potency changes.

We grow, we mature, some of us give birth, we age, we die.

The language of the novel differs from the just-the-facts language of the old tales. It's robust and earthy, sometimes even baroque.

It's not about whether or not someone is a bigot, but whether or not the argument which that someone is arguing is worth being a bigot about.

Scale is the new up.

She spent the first half of her life alone. For the second half, she longed for a man of dignity to rescue her.

Each one of you carries the potential to blossom like flowers. When you blossom, petals of your mind open and the fragrance spread far and near.

I listen to a piece of music and really get inside it and let it suggest a little universe to create.

I'm most excited about going swimming and riding water slides, shooting off fireworks, and playing basketball, and things like that. That's what I really love doing. Summer is a great time.

The Israelis want security. The Arabs want dignity. And they consider the demands of each other as incompatible.

The exercise of authority is odious, and they who know how to govern, leave it in abeyance as much as possible.

Many people must have looked at my life and thought I was quite fortunate. But I felt lousy about myself - and as you now know, I didn't come from a place where I had a lot of self-confidence.