I don't think that I had any idea that 'Fear of Flying' would become a part of the culture. I had no idea that it would go all over the world and be published in Chinese and Serbo-Croat and so on.

What was the point of spending your life with someone you were always looking for ways to decieve?

Isn't that the problem? That women have been swindled for centuries into substituting adornment for love, fashion (as it were) for passion?

I think poetry is the best thing I do. It's certainly the purest. I seem to switch gears without too much trouble. Non-fiction is in many ways the easiest to write.

All my forebears worked for a living. My grandfather painted portraits. My mother too. My aunt painted seascapes.

Despite all the cynical things writers have said about writing for money, the truth is we write for love. That is why it is so easy to exploit us.

I do believe that in every age there are people whose consciousness transcends their own time and that these people, whether fictional or historical, are those with whom we most closely identify and those about whom we most enjoy reading.