There comes a moment, when you get lost in the woods, when the woods begin to feel like home.

I think it is important to remind people of the extent of our free will.

On the morning the last Lisbon daughter took her turn at suicide- it was Mary this time, and sleeping pills, like Therese- the two paramedics arrived at the house knowing exactly where the knife drawer was, and the gas oven, and the beam in the basement from which it was possible to tie a rope.

When I wrote The Virgin Suicides, I gave myself very strict rules about the narrative voice: the boys would only be able to report what they had seen or found or what had been told to them.

They were bound for college, husbands, child-rearing, unhappiness only dimly perceived- bound, in other words, for life.

that since Cecilia’s suicide, the Lisbon’s could hardly wait for the night to forget themselves in sleep

Being a writer is a solitary life. So the little part of me that's an actor still enjoys the theatrical part of reading and doing the voices and telling the story.