But if you never did anything you couldn't undo you'd end up doing nothing at all.

I don't type [when I write] because . . . I often have the feeling that everything flows directly from my right hand.

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

None of my own experiences ever finds its way into my work. However, the stages of my life - motherhood, middle age, etc. - often influence my subject matter.

People always talked about a mother's uncanny ability to read her children, but that was nothing compared to how children could read their mothers.

For my own family, I would always choose the makeshift, surrogate family formed by various characters unrelated by blood.

She was good at talking with young people. She seemed to view them as interesting foreigners.