Ma's still nodding. "You're the one who matters, though. Just you." I shake my head till it's wobbling because there's no just me.

In the world I notice persons are nearly always stressed and have no time...I don't know how persons with jobs do the jobs and all the living as well...I guess the time gets spread very thin like butter all over the world, the roads and houses and playgrounds and stores, so there's only a little smear of time on each place, then everyone has to hurry on to the next bit.

I always wince a little bit when I send me to each of my new books. I wince at submitting myself to my father's judgment. But, of course, he's such a fond father that he always writes back, saying it's the greatest thing ever written.

For all the books in his possession, he still failed to read the stories written plain as day in the faces of the people around him.

I'm very interested in how idealistic young people can get caught up in all sorts of systems of extreme belief, you know, whether it's cults or whether it's suicide bombers.

I must say, in the case of "Room," both the book and the film, I don't think being a lesbian author held me back at all.

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