I remain curious about all the lives I can't have - and about the lives of others, real and imagined, past and present, and how people came to be who they are... and who they might yet be. I am enchanted by the landscape of possibility.

As a writer I am proud that if you took my last four books, and they didn't have my name on them, I don't think readers would know they were by the same author.

There is nothing wrong with a writer who has a distinct style in book after book, but I am not interested in repeating myself.

It was difficult to enjoy the trees and flowers when I was so aware of all that I had not yet done - pruning, weeding, transplanting, mulching, composting, tagging. When I was doing the work myself, I was happy, free.

There is no particular source my stories come from. The stories always seem to be there waiting for me, though sometimes shrouded in mist and fog.

A wife who loses a husband is called a widow. A husband who loses a wife is called a widower. A child who loses his parents is called an orphan. There is no word for a parent who loses a child. That's how awful the loss is.

Writing a novel, I am making is an object that has a life and identity of its own, apart from me.