I hope readers will do what I do when I read a novel I like: talk in ways that will illuminate their own lives.

Not writing at all leads to nothing.

The pursuit of otherness, the sense that we are somehow different than our brothers and sisters, no matter where we find them, allows for all the other great evils: racism, sexism, homophobia, violence against gay people and against women.

What I expect from my male friends is that they are polite and clean. What I expect from my female friends is unconditional love, the ability to finish my sentences for me when I am sobbing, a complete and total willingness to pour their hearts out to me, and the ability to tell me why the meat thermometer isn't supposed to touch the bone.

There is something so settled and stodgy about turning a great romance into next of kin on an emergency room form, and something so soothing and special, too.

Frankly, I'm mainly telling the story to myself. Thinking about audience is too daunting, and worst case, invites you to homogenize, to soften the hard edges of things.

You cannot be really first-rate at your work if your work is all you are.