People are disturbed enough by serial killers, but the whole notion of female violence, particularly maternal violence - the idea of mothers who kill - really unnerves people.

You want to believe that there's one relationship in life that's beyond betrayal. A relationship that's beyond that kind of hurt. And there isn't.

She has that quality, does the Hudson, as I imagine all great rivers do: the deep, abiding sense that those activities what take place on shore among human beings are of the moment, passing, and aren't the stories by way of which the greater tale of this planet will, in the end, be told.

I have to be very careful, however, because I have no intention of providing an excuse for this behavior. It's an attempt to explain how so many women come from backgrounds where the pressure to be a good mother is so severe that if they can't do it, something really snaps.

People would rather be deceived than have the truth cause them anxiety

I'm a fairly ascetic person. And I do most of my writing at night. You don't get distracted, your brain goes into what you are writing about, into the world you're writing about, rather than into the world you're in.

I wanted nothing less than to be a fiction writer when I was a kid. If you had told me I would be an artist or novelist when I grew up, I would have laughed in your face