Many women my age have known the experience of giving up crucial parts of themselves to please the man they love.

She felt everything too deeply, it was like the world was too much for her.

It's not only children who grow. Parents do too.

A person who deserves my loyalty receives it.

The big dramas that fascinate me are the quiet ones that happen behind closed doors in so-called ordinary families.

The painter who feels obligated to depict his subjects as uniformly beautiful or handsome and without flaws will fall short of making art.

At Home in the World is the story of a young woman, raised in some difficult circumstances, and how she survives. It tells a story of redemption, not victimhood.

To share our stories is not only a worthwhile endeavor for the storyteller, but for those who hear our stories and feel less alone because of it.

My job is writing. I get paid to do it. When was the last time you heard someone challenge a doctor for making money off of cancer?

The portrait of my parents is a complicated one, but lovingly drawn.

Those who rhapsodize about the ease and joy of childhood have perhaps forgotten what it's like to be 12 years old.

Our whole social order could self-destruct over the obsession with freedom disconnected from responsibility

I'm not doing it for media attention, not doing it for sponsors, not for money.

I think I'm an American writer writing about Latin America, and I'm a Latin American writer who happens to write in English.

Happiness in the present is only shattered by comparison with the past.

Atheists tend to read only each other’s books and not the work of the religious thinkers they are supposedly refuting.

Joy has come to live with me. How can I be sad? I do so love Thy presence, which is joy within me.

I can't give you happiness. I can show you where it is, but I can't give it to you. How can I give you what you already have? You have to get it yourself, inside your mind.

The inspector ate only two of my tiny sandwiches: the first because he hadnt expected it to taste so awful; the second, I think, because hed thought surely the first must have been a mistake.

Dreaming carries no risks. The dangerous thing is trying to transform your dreams into reality.

A lot of Scots have settled in Canada over the years and it's a very easy place for Scots - they understand us, we understand them.