In my books, my idea is always to explore social context and social forces.

Fiction is ideally suited to re-creating the important emotional aspects of history.

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.

I don't really think myself that sex work is necessarily more demeaning than other kinds of demeaning work.

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.

There is a lot of gender segregation. You still have many poor women who work in women-only jobs. In the family, in most cases, only women have the double job of working outside the home and taking care of the family.

Solitude offers a lot that being coupled or being in a group does not. It helps us learn what we are capable of.