People will sometimes say, "Why don't you write more politics?" And I have to explain to them that writing the lives of women IS politics.

You become a writer because you need to become a writer - nothing else.

Well, you have children so you know: little children little troubles, big children, big troubles - it's a saying in Yiddish. Maybe the Chinese said it too.

The word career is a divisive word. It's a word that divides the normal life from business or professional life.

Today's wars are about oil. But alternate energies exist now - solar, wind - for every important energy-using activity in our lives. The only human work that cannot be done without oil is war.

I really believe one of the jobs of a writer is to stretch as far as you can into other voices.

To be modest means that you have something to be modest about.