Female adolescence is – universally – an emotionally and psychologically intense period.

My mother was very involved with Cesar Chavez’s work on behalf of the migrant farm workers in California.

I come from an immigrant culture. I’m only a couple of generations away from having been a servant girl myself.

At every turn, girls – even the most carefully raised and deeply loved – are surrounded by a popular culture that exhorts them to think of themselves as sexually disposable creatures.

If you’re a writer, you just keep following the path – keep going deeper and deeper into the things that interest you.

In many respects a teenage girl’s home is more important to her than at any time since she was a small child. She also needs emotional support and protection from the most corrosive cultural forces that seek to exploit her when she is least able to resist.

To really love Joan Didion – to have been blown over by things like the smell of jasmine and the packing list she kept by her suitcase – you have to be female.

My father was a writer; I’ve known a lot of children of writers – daughters and sons of writers, and it can be a hard way to grow up.

I miss my mother very much, and I feel closest to her when I have dinner in the oven and the children are nearby playing and I’m reading a book or doing some little project.

I miss my mother very much, and I feel closest to her when I have dinner in the oven and the children are nearby playing and I'm reading a book or doing some little project.