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My sister was a twin, and the other baby died in childbirth, and I was three at the time, and I always kind of thought it haunted me. It was a weird thing. My dad was an ob-gyn, and so it was confusing that the other baby didn't come home from the hospital.

There is more excitement, more amazement when a first is born. No subsequent babies can have that impact.

When you discover that you are going to have a child, it stirs up memories of your own childhood.

For when a child is born the mother also is born again.

In most places and times in human history, babies have had not just one person but lots of people around who were really paying attention to them around, dedicated to them, cared to them, were related to them. I think the big shift in our culture is the isolation in which many children are growing up.

Leaving home in a sense involves a kind of second birth in which we give birth to ourselves.

Having a child is sowing the seeds of your own obsolescence: birth is the fuse that leads to that other thing. You appear, you replace yourself, you die.

Birth is a beautiful thing.

I am the fourth of five children, and I can't remember a time with no babies in the house.

You know there is a person inside every baby, right? And anybody who has ever met a baby knows there is already a person in there.