I begin by writing paragraphs that don’t have an immediate relation to a plot. The sound of the story comes first.

As an older person, I do feel an obligation to tell the story about what was really happening in the fifties, sixties, and seventies, as I saw it.

I know I've done good work. I've been very serious about my writing, and I've done the best that I could. But I don't feel that I've done more than I should have. In fact, I've done less than I should have.

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.

…I go through a story for lies. I might discover the lie of trying to show off. Sometimes they’re lies of character. Sometimes they are lies of writing the most beautiful sentence in the world that has nothing to do with the story.

We write about what we don't know about what we know.

Sometimes before people know what they're saying, they already love the language.