"When I was a kid, my step-dad, who raised me, used to buy me books as Christmas gifts. He was an intellectual from another era, and believed that some kind of moral salvation lay in a combination of books, public education, and paying as much taxes as you could. When I was in sixth grade, he bought me the trilogy of children’s books by E.B. White, which included Trumpet of the Swan, Charlotte’s Web, and Stuart Little. The same year, I got a satin comforter from my mom, and I remember lying in my antique brass bed, propped up on those luxurious new pillows, and going on the wild rides of these stories; it seems like I didn’t leave my bed until I’d finished all three. I’d always liked to read, but it was the experience of binging on those three children’s books that really showed me what reading did to me, and for me—the way reading made me feel calm and inspired before I knew what those words meant—and that I was, in my heart, a reader, which really, then, was the beginning of it all, since writers are just readers who need a job."

"My mother gave me “Little Women,” telling me that she thought I was ready for it. I can’t count the number of times I read it between the ages of 10 and 15 – I used the book like a set of worry beads. It soothed and enchanted me, and it was only much later, as an adult, that I realized that Louisa May Alcott (and my mother) had given me a road map of the journey from childhood to adulthood. It is, obviously, a highly moral book, but to me it felt as if its precepts were based on a personal (rather than a Christian) morality. In the world of “Little Women,” the girls all learned what their responsibility was toward one another, themselves and the world at large – the choice was up to them. They could choose to be headstrong (Jo), unengaged (Meg), shy (Beth) or selfish (Amy). But through their thoroughly engaging adventures they learned to be productive and ambitious ( Jo), loving and domestic (Meg), musical and devoted (Beth) and artistic and philanthropic (Amy). I learned that I could be whatever I wanted to be, and that you could come from anywhere to achieve [it]."