I'm really aware that in fiction, women are pretty much equal. There's a lot of very successful women novelists. Not so much [for women writers working] in film.

When people write to me with stories, they are never ones that work for me. There's something mysterious about which ones catch you.

Writing stories is my way of scratching that itch: my escape from the claustrophobia of individuality. It lets me, at least for a while, live more than one life, walk more than one path. Reading, of course, can do the same.

Writing is nearly always a matter of finding whatever your brain needs to trick it into being creative, and in my case, a tiny little bit of fact just seems to work.

I look back one more time. It's like a crater, a hole where something happened.

I'm finding that success is way more time-consuming than failure ever was.

The way to my heart is through Belgian milk chocolate.