Mothers have this huge influence, and I feel like they're always teaching us from the day we're born what to be afraid of, what to be cautious of, what we should like, and what we should look like.
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.