On being an orphan, frequently: “No, this is different, it’s a kind of mildly sad bewilderment, maybe related to that bittersweet feeling you get when someone young offers you a seat on the subway: Can this really be who I am in the world?” (The New York Times)

What fullness is: “The notion that thinness — and the attempt to force the fat body toward a state of culturally mandated discipline — begets great rewards is centuries old.” (Medium)

How Janelle Monáe found her voice: “For Monáe, ‘Moonlight’ and then ‘Hidden Figures’ were a way to convey the message she has striven over and over to convey: recognition and validation for people overlooked by society.” (The New York Times Magazine)

I am the one woman who has it all (ha!): “I have kids who have forced me to do everything in my life with greater efficiency and the professional assumption that I’m now less efficient after having kids.” (The New Yorker)

On what it’s like to have an extreme habit: “It’s often said that good habits are hard to develop and bad habits are hard to break. Most habits, though, simply go unnoticed, as the thought processes behind our daily routines get lost through repetition.” (Man Repeller)