The secret to being a rider in the hippodrome wasn't that you must be agile, or that you must be good with horses...It was that you must hide inside your costume a little of a killer's heart.

I have lived for a long time inside a series of coincidences that most people would find implausible in a novel.

The ideal editor will hold you to the best of yourself in the piece.

Whenever people say a coincidence in a novel is implausible, I think, Do I have a story for you.

With my family background - my parents were both activists - writing about culture and politics came naturally.

I realized that my identity as a novelist was private. Only I knew how much of a novelist I was!

Everyone would tell me they couldn't identify with sexual abuse. No one says they can't identify with the tales of the Greek gods and goddesses because they don't live on Mt. Olympus.