I think what can be most shameful or embarrassing is when our bodies broadcast a secret we'd prefer no one to know. This is why I hate rashes, in particular face rashes.

I guess what I find so interesting about memory, and its role in a person's identity, is how the attempt to achieve accuracy requires you to remove yourself from your life in an authorial manner.

When my husband first read a draft, he said, "You spend too much time describing the characters' outfits." He was right. I removed much of the clothes talk, but quite a bit remained.

I wish somebody knew whether or not I'm Jewish.

My husband is always accusing me of being a context-free individual. He asks something and he has no idea where it came from or what it related to. I have to supply him with way more supplementary information than I ever have to supply my female friends.

There are some writers who are done when they finish a draft because they've thought it through beforehand. Whereas I'll finish a first draft and I'm nowhere near done.

People don't hijack planes anymore because that old system of hijacking in order to barter for a prison release or get to a different country no longer works, exactly, because 9/11 recoded the hostage's interpretation of a hijack. If a hijacker isn't trying to use the plane as a missile, then he is in danger of being killed by the hostages. There is no minor terror threat anymore. No mid-level terrorism.