I try to cultivate friendships, because they are great assets. And I tend to make them last over time. Nevertheless sometimes they end mysteriously and you don't really know for what reason. Just like loves.=

I don't always understand my characters. I write to understand them better.

In a novel there's not much autobiography. There are characters in transit. Naturally, I can project something of my experiences onto the characters, but they have their own autonomy, a personality that is often a mystery to me.

To leave a book is like leaving the better part of oneself.

Characters simply come and find me. They sit down, I offer them a coffee. They tell me their story and then they almost always leave. When a character, after drinking some coffee and briefly telling her story, wants dinner and then a place to sleep and then breakfast and so on, for me the time has come to write the novel.

Above all else she mustn't think that using her body will help her attain her goal. Men use women who play seductively, and then they look down on them.

A writer is first and foremost a witness of her time. She must tell the truth, not take a political position. But then the truth that she discovers is profoundly political.