When you are a high school girl, there is nothing more miraculous than a high school boy.

I don't know what it is about human beings but most of us really like reading about or observing sexual tension and romance. It's just so much fun. I don't know if there is some Darwinian thing in us that really responds to that, but I think the most memorable scenes to me in books and movies are the ones where a couple is about to kiss.

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 feel that Pride and Prejudice is an incredibly well constructed novel on every level. The dialogue is great. The character development is great. The plotting is great. The pacing is great. The language is great.

I feel like a lot of life is distasteful and embarrassing. And you just push through it. You fix what you can, and you let time pass.

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

I thought, if I write a book that is not a retelling of Pride and Prejudice, it's not going to mean that I will not get any criticism. I might as well write the book that I want to write.