Women were the ones that held the reins, it emerged.

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.

Faithful are the wounds of a friend but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.

Just knowing that the world is round Here I'm dancing on the ground Am I right side up or upside down? Is this real or am I dreaming?

You have to be respectful of pop culture, because people interpret it in the way they want.

If I can change, anybody can change.

I think of love as a force of nature-as strog as the sun, as necessary, as impersonal, as gigantic, as impossible, as scorching as it is warming,as drought-making as it is life-giving.

It's a lovely answer and takes me entirely by surprise. I hadn't realized we were having a serious conversation, or I think I would've given a better reply when he asked me.

Yeah, there's a tendency to get pigeonholed in Hollywood.

A lot of the times when I've auditioned for parts in America, the answer is, 'Sorry, we need a bigger name.'

What we seek we do not find - that would be too trim and tidy for so reckless and opulent a thing as life. It is something else we find.

Don't whine. Find the positive in difficult situations.