When you find yourself alone, or in a transition, you dream more. These are also the times when you read books.

Only bad writers think that their work is really good.

You write a book and you finish the book. That's your job done, right? You win the Booker and you have a whole new job. You have to be the thing, right? So instead of writing the story, you somehow are the story. And that I found that sort of terrible.

For 10 or 11 years, I had my kids, I wrote four or five books, and I was working all the damn time.

To be able to have the space to sit down and write has always been my central policy.

No woman that I know is capable of leaving her child down for thirty seconds. She can't walk away without making sure that everything is absolutely as secure and safe for her child as can be.

Description is hard. Remember that all description is an opinion about the world. Find a place to stand.