She had once said that she believed the women's liberation movement of the sixties and seventies was actually a ploy by men to get women to do more.

I admire the linear and decisive way a certain kind of man thinks, to my curlicue boundless overthinking.

Character development is what I value most as a reader of fiction. If an author can manage to create the sort of characters who feel fully real, who I find myself worrying about while Im walking through the grocery store aisles a week later, that to me is as close to perfection as it gets.

Timing was everything when it came to being a woman—the moment you entered the world could seal your fate.

I read as much poetry as time allows and circumstance dictates: No heartache can pass without a little Dorothy Parker, no thunderstorm without W. H. Auden, no sleepless night without W. B. Yeats.

Fiction will always be my greatest love, with poetry close behind.

We don't always do the things our parents want us to do, but it is their mistake if they can't find a way to love us anyway.