The Amateur Marriage grew out of the reflection that of all the opportunities to show differences in character, surely an unhappy marriage must be the richest.

I remember leaving the hospital - thinking, 'Wait, are they going to let me just walk off with him? I don't know beans about babies! I don't have a license to do this.' We're just amateurs.

But I don't think people take bad advice. They've got intuition too, you know. In fact I'd be surprised if they take any advice at all.

The hardest novel to write was Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant.

I consciously try to end my novels at a point where I won't have to wonder about my characters ever again.

I would advise any beginning writer to write the first drafts as if no one else will ever read them - without a thought about publication - and only in the last draft to consider how the work will look from the outside.

There is no true life. Your true life is the one you end up with, whatever it may be. You just do the best you can with what you've got.