I don't like hiking with convicts carrying machetes.

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.

When the Holy Spirit moves, your family smiles

I wear the writer pants in the family.

Being blind is the worst possible thing and asking me to read and write no more is torture.

I wanted to be a doctor, but my mom was like "It's really hard and it's going to take 10 years, so I was like "OK, I'll just be a lawyer."

Once a year go somewhere you have never been before.

We point to our unhappy circumstances to rationalize our negative feelings. This is the easy way out. It takes, after all, very little effort to feel victimized.

I'm going to keep seeing him as much as I can. We'll see what happens," I say, realizing that just "seeing what happens" is my version of "going for it.

Each one to his own trade; then would the cows be well cared for.

The press always ends up being much nicer than I expect. A lot of times they say something snarky about you, but then you meet them in person and they couldn't be nicer.

I spent most of my life locked in my bedroom, miserable about my raging acne.