I expend far too much of my maternal energies on guilt and regret.

For a couple of months there I was shrieking like a banshee.

Well, you know, I was raised by a 1970s feminist. My mom had a consciousness-raising group. I used to sit at the top of the stairs and listen to them.

You know, I feel like my job is to write a book. Then filmmakers come and they make a movie. And they're two really different art forms.

I love my husband more than I love my children.

The Q I loathe and despise, the Q every single writer I know loathes and despises, is this one: 'Where,' the reader asks, 'do you get your ideas?' It's a simple question, and my usual response is a kind of helpless, 'I don't know.'

I wrote three novels in six months, with a clarity of focus and attention to detail that I had never before experienced. This type of sublime creative energy is characteristic of the elevated and productive mood state known as hypomania.