I know people. Most have no earthly notion of the price of a snow-white conscience.

I don't understand how any good art could fail to be political.

In fact, one of the things that I really love about literary fiction is that it's one of the few kinds of writing that doesn't tell us what to think or what to buy or what to wear. We're surrounded by advertising.

It takes some courage to write fiction about politically controversial topics. The dread is you'll be labeled a political writer.

They all attended Hester's church, which Dellarobia viewed as a complicated pyramid scheme of moral debt and credit resting ultimately on the shoulders of the Lord, but rife with middle managers.

I made it to the childbearing phase without TV dependence, then looked around and thought, Well gee, why start now? Why get a pet python on the day you decide to raise fuzzy little gerbils?

Before that I was a scientist. I did research in population biology. And that's what I always go back to, it helps me to remember that people are not the end of the world, although we may be when it comes to it. We're just one species among millions in this world.