I Was Very Driven, Very

It Often Seems, Looking Back, That The Unexpected Comes To Define Us, The Paths We Didn't See Coming And May Have Wandered Down By Mistake. The Older We Get The More Willing We Are To Follow Those, To Surprise Ourselves.

When I Quit The New York Times To Be A Fulltime Mother, The Voices Of The World Said I Was Nuts....but If Success Is Not On Your Own Terms, If It Looks Good To The World But Does Not Feel Good In Your Soul, It Is Not Success At All.

I Have A Cat, The Pet That Ranks Just Above A Throw Pillow In Terms Of Required Responsibility.

Recently A Young Mother Asked For Advice. What, She Wanted To Know, Was She To Do With A 7-year-old Who Was Obstreperous, Outspoken, And Inconveniently Willful? "keep Her," I Replied.... The Suffragettes Refused To Be Polite In Demanding What They Wanted Or Grateful For Getting What They Deserved. Works For Me.

There's A Certain Kind Of Conversation You Have From Time To Time At Parties In New York About A New Book. The Word "banal" Sometimes Rears Its By-now Banal Head; You Say "underedited," I Say "derivative." The Conversation Goes Around And Around Various Literary Criticisms, And By The Time It Moves On One Thing Is Clear: No One Read The Book; We Just Read The Reviews.