“Writing is mostly a case of mood management. The emotion you have is not absolute, it is temporary. It may be useful, but it is not the truth. It is not you.”

“I didn't say any of this to my sister. How I saw her being broken into mediocrity and motherhood; her body broken and then her mind - or did her mind go first, it's sort of hard to disentangle - an...”

“I was raised in a very old fashioned Ireland where women were reared to be lovely.”

“Imagine that you are dying. If you had a terminal disease would you ­finish this book? Why not? The thing that annoys this 10-weeks-to-live self is the thing that is wrong with the book. So change ...”

“Trust your heart if the seas catch fire, live by love though the stars walk backward.”

“The decision is mine, and I choose happiness”

“...we confidently say that it's not worth trying to reach any conclusions merely because we decide to stop halfway along the path that would lead us straight to them.”

“Mother Nature is relentless and forward. When we do not live according to her laws she rewards us with disease.”

“In examining disease, we gain wisdom about anatomy and physiology and biology. In examining the person with disease, we gain wisdom about life.”

“They are very good odds. And I know that my scientific brain believes them, if not my panic-ridden, maternal one. Those odds should have made a difference to my reaction. I should have been able to...”

“You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection”

“I read once that the ancient Egyptians had fifty words for sand & the Eskimos had a hundred words for snow. I wish I had a thousand words for love, but all that comes to mind is the way you move ag...”

“Romance is the glamour which turns the dust of everyday life into a golden haze. ”