I'm always surprised to hear or read my work described, "In angry tones, she says." No! In truthful tones! Does truth have a tone? I don't know.

I was then at the height of my two-facedness: that is, outside I seemed one way, inside I was another; outside false, inside true.

I read about writers who have routines. They write at certain times of the day. I can't do that. I am always writing-but in my head.

I didn't know it was possible to be successful as a writer, so I wasn't afraid to fail.

I would pretend when I was a child that I was Charlotte Brontë, because I'd read Jane Eyre when I was ten and, although I didn't understand it, I loved the idea that this woman had written a book. I wanted to be her.

I was a new person then, I knew things I had not known before, I knew things that you can know only if you have been through what I had just been through.

The shadow of my mother danced around the room to a tune that my own shadow sang.