I couldn't have been a novelist without being a mother. It gives you a unique witness point of the growth of a personality. It was a kind of biological component for me that had to come first. My children gave this other window on the world.

This is why I read novels: so I can escape my own unrelenting monologue.

The scolding voice is her own, so abrasive and quick, yet so powerless to move her.

There are chapters in every life which are seldom read and certainly not aloud.

I don't think I would have been a writer if I hadn't been a mother. I wanted to construct something that contained some of these feelings that I had, some of these discoveries or revelations.

In a long and healthy life, which is what most of us have, there is plenty of time.

I'm concerned about the unknowability of other people.