Novelists are always resisting autobiographical readings of their work, because they know how false those can be.

She may have looked normal on the outside, but once you'd seen her handwriting you knew she was deliciously complicated inside.

The television replaced the sound of conversation that was missing from my grandparents' lives.

It was the combination of many factors... With most people, suicide is like Russian roulette. Only one chamber has a bullet. With the Lisbon girls, the gun was loaded. A bullet for family abuse. A bullet for genetic predisposition. A bullet for historical malaise. A bullet for inevitable momentum. The other two bullets are impossible to name, but that doesn't mean the chambers were empty.

I approach writing female characters the same why I approach writing male characters. I never think I'm writing about women, I think I'm writing about one woman, one person. And I try to imagine what she is like, and endow her with a lot of my own thoughts and history.

Dieting fooled you into thinking you could control your life.

You never get over it, but you get to where it doesn't bother you so much.