I do not have deep theological understanding or opinion, but I do not read the Bible as the literal word of God.

We're often ashamed of asking for so much help because it seems selfish or petty or narcissistic, but I think, if there's a God - and I believe there is - that God is there to help. That's what God's job is.

I quit my last real job, as a writer at a magazine, when I was twenty-one. That was the moment when I lost my place of prestige on the fast track, and slowly, millimeter by millimeter, I started to get found, to discover who I had been born to be, instead of the impossibly small package, all tied up tightly in myself, that I had agreed to be.

My coming to faith did not start with a leap but rather a series of staggers from what seemed like one safe place to another. Like lily pads, round and green, these places summoned and then held me up while I grew. Each prepared me for the next leaf on which I would land, and in this way I moved across the swamp of doubt and fear.

I grew up around books - my grandmother's house, where I lived as a small child, was full of books. My father was a history teacher, and he loved the Russian novels. There were always books around.

Being a mother for me was like, 'Oh, this is what I've been looking for my whole life.' This brings me a sense of completion. I never knew I would love this deeply. It's so nice not to worry about myself anymore. I only worry about my children.

Looking back, I got the bed I wanted and I lay in it. I didn't want to go to America. If you want to join that world, you have to go and live there, and that was something I could not have done. I am very much about family. It doesn't matter where I live, but I feel very needful of my people around me. Besides, theatre is my first love.

We weren't the kind of family that talked about our problems. We were a close family, in a kind of faraway way. It wasn't a being-with-each-other kind of close. We all went our own ways.