Usually, ordinary histories don't get the emotional feel of a period. That's what a novel can do.

For two years I watched my parents' lives wind to a close. This made me aware of old age as a one stage, the final one, of a long journey.

The world is abundant with food for us, and with everything we need, if only we just open our eyes. There's so much food that gets thrown out or never harvested.

One important part of historical recording is to get people of another generation to understand the feelings, the passion that went into social transformation. That's why oral history is so valuable.

Usually, ordinary histories don't get the emotional feel of a period. That's what a novel can do.

The movement for women's liberation was about an emotional transformation, an explosion, a feeling all over the country that things must be different, and ideas about how they should be. I think fiction can capture that kind of thing better than other genres because in fiction you can explore the feelings of your characters - the before and the after.

I see old age not as something to hide from or dread (though there is much to oppose in the usual treatment of the old) but rather as something to embrace as the natural and inevitable end.