I think it must be very hard to be one of the new young writers who are urged to put themselves forward when it may be the last thing on earth they'd be good at

Ever consider what pets must think of us? I mean, here we come back from a grocery store with the most amazing haul - chicken, pork, half a cow. They must think we're the greatest hunters on earth!

Smells could bring a person back clearer than pictures even could.

I just want to be told a story, and I want to believe I'm living that story, and I don't give a thought to influences or method or any other writerly concerns

I expect that any day now, I will have said all I have to say; I'll have used up all my characters, and then I'll be free to get on with my real life.

(About parenting:) ... all that tedium, broken up by little spurts of high drama.

I love to think about chance - about how one little overheard word, one pebble in a shoe, can change the universe.