I find the idea of vigilante justice very attractive. I like the idea that the murderer decides that this person has gone too far, and nothing will happen to him unless she does something to stop him.

I never know what's going to happen in a novel. I don't have a plan or an outline.

A story begins and it always passes from the subjunctive to the declarative. And Italians don't seem to care about making a fine distinction between that which is speculation and that which is fact.

I don't go to the movies because I don't like films.

All through graduate school, instead of having a television I read murder mysteries: Hammett, Chandler, Ruth Rendell, P. D. James.

favors are always for ourselves. Especially when we ask for things for other people.

My father read 'The New York Times,' my mother did secretarial work, we had a dog, we had a garden, I had a brother.