"You can't possibly fathom the ins and outs of a prepubescent beauty treatment until you've felt the strange but exhilarating tingle of a cottage-cheese-and-Pop-Rocks facial."

"My mother is a special education teacher but also an artist, and my father an advertising executive. They are about as wacky as you can get without being alcoholics."

"Some of the writers I admire who seem very, very funny and very emotional to me can develop a closeness with the reader without giving too much of themselves away. Lorrie Moore comes to mind, as does David Sedaris. When they write, the reader thinks that they're being trusted as a friend."

"I hope to one day co-sign a lease with another person but, well, it doesn't plague me that I have yet to do so. Put it this way: I've never had to violently tug at my own pillow at 2 A.M. to get myself to stop snoring."

"The most vulnerable people have tough exteriors because they are very scared inside, and it's very hard for people like that - people like me - to open up. But playing it safe means you stop being open to learning. I always try to find the challenges."

"The violence betwen women is unbelievable. Women try to make each other crawl so that their knees are bleeding."

"It is a enduring truth that the distance between ambition and reality is bridged solely by consistent effort."

"I support women, men, anybody who is in a place that's not their strongest and who is ready to push forward."