I didn't write any fiction until I was past thirty.

In the end, long life is the reward, strength, and beauty.

The best training is to read and write, no matter what. Don't live with a lover or roommate who doesn't respect your work. Don't lie, buy time, borrow to buy time. Write what will stop your breath if you don't write.

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

I saw my ex-husband in the street. I was sitting on the steps of the new library. Hello, my life, I said. We had once been married for twenty-seven years, so I felt justified. He said, What? What life? No life of mine.

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.

I believe in a kind of fidelity to your own early ideas; it's a kind of antagonism in me to prevailing fads.