I love anything by Joan Didion. Incidentally, she was one of the local moms when I was growing up in Point Dume. She always reminded me a little bit of my mother, so I feel a great affinity. I love the precision of Didion's writing. There's a construction and a craftsmanship to her sentences that's imbued with so much emotion.

Somewhere in my callow, misspent youth, I was smart enough to marry my best friend.

The challenge as a parent is letting your kids fail in the right ways because that's where we do most of our learning.

In my bachelor days, the priority wasn't learning to cook.