I do not think we remember our family in any real sense. We live in them instead

I write anywhere - when I have an idea it’s hard not to write. I used to be kind of precious about where I wrote. Everything had to be quiet and I couldn’t be disturbed, it really filled my day.

Write whatever way you like. Fiction is made of words on a page; reality is made of something else. It doesn't matter how "real" your story is, or how "made up": what matters is its necessity.

We do not always like the people we love- we do not always have that choice.

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

The only way to write a book, I’m fond of telling people, is to actually write a book. That’s how you write a book.

We have lost the art of public tenderness, these small gestures of wiping and washing; we have forgotten how abjectly the body welcomes a formal touch.