I think it's significantly easier to be a female writer today than in the early 1800's. That said, it's hard to imagine almost anyone who knows anything about publishing disagreeing with the statement that women writers today are often taken much less seriously than men writers. But it's hard to quantify, and even define, what being taken seriously means.

My boarding school experience was the only thing I had strong enough feelings to write about for hundreds and hundreds of pages. I can still smell the formaldehyde of the fetal pigs in biology.

She really does like him, she likes lying next to him, she wants to be around him; when you get down to it, can you say that about many people?

I like it when characters are some combination of appealing and maybe flawed or self-interested. I think in terms of scenes, and what I want a scene to achieve, and I think that the psychological realism arises from that.

There are people we treat wrong and later, we're prepared to treat other people right.

I heard Gillian say, with a laugh, At this point, does anyone expect the liberals not to be total hypocrites? She was oblivious to the possibility that perhaps not everyone present shared her views, and I thought, You're sixteen. How can you already be a Republican?

I just think that people are complicated, both men and women. It happens that I write more about women.