The big occurrences in life, the serious ones, have for me always been nearly impossible to recognize because they never feel big or serious. In the moment, you have to pee, your arm itches, or what people are saying strikes you as melodramatic or sentimental, and it's hard not to smirk. You have a sense of what this type of situation should be like - for one thing, all-consuming - and this isn't it. But then you look back, and it was that; it did happen.

I liked the idea of giving Eligible a feminist flavor. While I do think that in Pride and Prejudice, Liz Bennet is very bold, she is also very restricted in terms of what's appropriate for her to do and the ways it's appropriate for her to behave. One of the differences between Pride and Prejudice and Eligible is that my female characters take more initiative in their romantic lives.

And I am pretty sure that's the point of reading fiction -- so someone else can say in a way you never would have something you recognize immediately.

But I never thought of who he wasn't, I never had to explain or defend him to myself, I didn't even care what we talked about.

I wanted my life to start - but in those rare moments when it seemed like something might actually change, panic shot through me.

Ironically, writing a novel is not a way to sort out your confusion.

I feel like if you read something, and it makes you so curious about a topic that you then go read something else, that's exciting.