I saw my mother in a different light. We all need to do that. You have to be displaced from what's comfortable and routine, and then you get to see things with fresh eyes, with new eyes.
It's both rebellion and conformity that attack you with success.
Whenever I'm with my [teenager], I feel as though I have to spend the whole time avoiding land mines.
For books I want to keep reading, it's definitely the voice. It must be a voice I've never heard before, and it must have its own particular intelligence. By 'voice,' I don't mean vernacular. It has to have its own particular history and world that it inhabits.
I don't steer clear of genres. I simply haven't steered myself toward some of them.
There are a lot of people who think that's what's needed to be successful is always being right, always being careful, always picking the right path.
