I do have trouble starting books. I have ideas that I have trouble starting to write. But I'm the kind of person who tends to finish everything she starts out of sheer stubbornness.

I got to thinking—when it was too late—you have to reach out to people. To your family, too. You can't just let them sit there, you should put your hand out. If they slap it back, well you reach out again if you care enough. If you don't care enough, you forget about them, if you can.

Kids are really tougher than adults, but we tend to forget this in an affluent society that lets kids indulge themselves.

You must not let yourself become too respectable. Keep yourself a little wild. What is life for, if not for the living of it?

Rebellion is necessary for development of character.

I got used to being a writer. To compare it to teaching - I taught for twenty-five years; for the first two or three years it was heady. I was discovering that I could do something and do it well. Be useful to people. It was exhilarating, sort of like the first two weeks of being in love with somebody, and then it becomes like the third bite of pizza. The first bite is wonderful. The second bite is not disappointing. The third? Meh. You get used to it.

By the time I started high school, I knew I wanted to be a writer. After graduating from Smith College in Massachusetts, I moved to New York City and worked for the advertising agency J. Walter Thompson.