I think we need to develop the courage to write from the viewpoint of people who may seem quite different from ourselves, who might have a different sexual orientation or a different race or a different ethnicity.

In many cultures, women are sometimes literally kept from learning to read or from going to school.

I don't really like to tell people to get out drugs.

There are so many different ways, most of them helpful and legal, to get yourself into a state of mind where writing is possible. It's going to be different for each person.

Truly things are better in general now, in America, than in the past.

I think people feel for a long time that they ought to know how to write a novel in two drafts.

I get to a certain point, and I think in a novel it's about the third draft, when I want other eyes on it.