For many decades my relations with my parents constituted unfinished business. I had dealt with them through sheer avoidance and guilt.

I did not intend to be a writer. I first wanted to be a lawyer, like my father. Then I got bit by the bug of philosophy and wanted to be a philosophy professor. I went to graduate school and quickly discovered it was impossible for a woman in those days - this was the early fifties - to be a philosopher, so I gave that up.

For many decades my relations with my parents constituted unfinished business. I had dealt with them through sheer avoidance and guilt.

My mirror image always had to be interpreted. And for that I sought my reflection in someone else's eyes.

I am not a psychological novelist, and I try very hard not to allow the reader to see the plight or circumstances of the characters as individual psychological plights. That's my preference; still, a lot of people do read my novels as psychological studies, and they're right to read them that way too, if that's what they mean to them.

Our society has very much limited our choices, even regarding the food we think acceptable.

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