This is how I learn most of what I know about my children and their friends: by sitting in the driver's seat and keeping quiet.

I never think about issues when I'm working on a novel. Issues are things that happen to people in sufficient numbers to elicit widespread attention; in other words, they're just life happening. That's what I think about: life, and telling a story.

The problem... is emblematic of what hasn't changed during the equal opportunity revolution of the last 20 years. Doors opened; opportunities evolved. Law, institutions, corporations moved forward. But many minds did not.

I think that we really fool ourselves about our ability to be safe and secure nowadays.

Don't ever confuse the two, your life and your work. The second is only part of the first.

Wow, so much of the way I've transacted my life... so much of the results that I'm happy about are because of what Daddy did.

The truth is that when you're writing a novel you're really living in it; you're living in the house, and you're living in the town.