Writing about unknown people means I spend a lot of time arguing to the reader about why it's worth knowing about them. That's challenging, but then the piece is pure discovery.

Orchid hunting is a mortal occupation.

I think of myself as something of a connoisseur of procrastination, creative and dogged in my approach to not getting things done.

Living in a rural setting exposes you to so many marvelous things - the natural world and the particular texture of small-town life, and the exhilarating experience of open space.

You have to simply love writing, and you have to remind yourself often that you love it.

Libraries are what is best about us as a society: open, exciting, rich, informative, free, inclusive, engaging.

One of the very best reasons for having children is to be reminded of the incomparable joys of a snow day.

A snow day literally and figuratively falls from the sky, unbidden, and seems like a thing of wonder.

An ordinary life examined closely reveals itself to be exquisite and complicated and exceptional, somehow managing to be both heroic and plain.

There's a marvelous sense of mastery that comes with writing a sentence that sounds exactly as you want it to.

Even after I'd published three books and had been writing full-time for twenty years, my father continued to urge me to go to law school.

My meaning is, that no man can expect his children to respect what he degrades.

I'm a real Suzy Homemaker.

I am pleased to be part of Promontory's steady efforts to assist banks and other financial firms in meeting legal and regulatory obligations and challenges.

Taking the Bible too literally is a mistake. It should be read as a guidebook of wisdom and insight.

Becoming a mom allowed me to just relax in a way I never had before. I used to care a lot about what I looked like in public or what people thought of me. I care at least 40 percent less now.

This is what we bear, I thought, the nearness of other lives.

Disney's really incredible on story.

For us, performance is everything. If we can get great actors in there who like us, and we really like, we feel pretty confident that we can make a movie work.

President Bush has said that the economy is growing, that there are jobs out there. But you know, it's a long commute to China to get those jobs.

I developed a passion for the Middle Ages the same way some people develop a passion for coconuts.