It's easy now, now that it's a story. When you were going through it, it was life. Always much harder to get the plot line on.

I never write in a linear way. And I tell students not to. You can only know so much about a book when you first start.

I don't know where everything is going, but I'm pretty confident that people like books - the objects. So I'm going to go on that -they're not going to disappear.

I have never been on the receiving end of a hate crime, or even a disparaging remark to my face.

I'm never sure who I'm writing for, or who's reading me, but I definitely see myself in conspiracy with my readers.

Some moments supersaturate, take on almost more than one tiny fragment of time can hold. How...can you hold this sort of memory of someone and at the same time just try to seem normally, regularly, pleased when she comes back to visit for a few days every few years?

It's easy now, now that it's a story. When you were going through it, it was life. Always much harder to get the plot line on.