I don't do research for my novels. Obviously, in my other line of work as a reporter and a columnist, I've had the opportunity to get to know both social workers and TV talk-show hosts.

There is only room in the lifeboat of your life for one, and you always choose yourself, and turn your parents into whatever it takes to keep you afloat.

All of the qualities that you need to be a good opinion columnist tend to be qualities that aren't valued in women.

Your children make it impossible to regret your past. They're its finest fruits. Sometimes the only ones.

When I write a novel, I have what I think of as an icon that helps get me into the world of the book.

These are my words; this is their world, a world in which we can wear our gender on our sleeves, unabashedly, as we go about the business of thinking out loud.

I go online all the time, I just don't read about myself. I read a fashion website called Go Fug Yourself. I actually correspond with the Fug Girls and that's great.