Maybe I’m a human, but I’m a me-and-Ma as well.

I watch his hands, they're lumpy but clever. "Is there a word for adults when they aren't parents?" Steppa laughs. "Folks with other things to do?

I've always been religiously inclined, but it doesn't come up in most of my books.

I got in the habit of giving away a book as soon as I've finished it because I lived in a housing co-op at Cambridge and had no space to keep books.

Change for your own sake, if you must, not for what you imagine another will ask of you.

You cannot predict literary success; the only way you can possibly aim for it is to do your thing and do it well.

I read a lot of social history. If I'm in an art gallery and a picture intrigues me, I immediately write down the title and I google it. I do a lot of googling and looking out for good stories. I can almost smell them sometimes.