Is the depressing part that he's only half right - it's not that she doesn't need rescuing but that nobody else will be able to do it? She has always somehow known that she is the one who will have to rescue herself. Or maybe what's depressing is that this knowledge seems like it should make life easier, and instead it makes it harder.

We all make mistakes, don't we? But if you can't forgive yourself, you'll always be an exile in your own life.

Well, I think in my first two novels, both the characters are pretty neurotic, which I would say that I am.

I think there is still pressure to marry. I think there is still pressure to have children. If you're middle or upper class, those pressures exist at a later age now.

I don't think that I would ever, while writing, think to myself, "I need a little more psychological realism."

There are people we treat wrong and later we're prepared to treat other people right. Perhaps this sounds mercenary, but I feel grateful for these trial relationships, and I would like to think it all evens out - surely, unknowingly, I have served as practice for other people.

I just like to inhabit a character really deeply.