I found motherhood a crash course in existentialism (what is my purpose in life, am I mistress or slave of my destiny, when the hell do I get some sleep?) and [the book] ROOM was the result.

I really like to keep my palette small but to be very intense, very myopic.

When I was four I thought everything in TV was just TV, then I was five and Ma unlied about lots of it being pictures of real and Outside being totally real. Now I’m in Outside but it turns out lots of it isn’t real at all.

For all that being a parent is normal statistically, it's not normal psychologically. It produces some of the most extreme emotions you'll ever have...

Stories are a different kind of true.

I was highly aware, in writing [the book] ROOM, that there are unsavoury aspects to our interest in such cases, and I thought it was rather honester to include discussion of media representation in the novel itself than to cling to the high moral ground by merely avoiding scenes of voyeurism, for instance.

It’s called mind over matter. If we don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.” When a bit of me hurts, I always mind.