The ideas for my books come about in two ways. There can be an intellectual idea that seems to be the reason for writing the book. [...] The other motive is unconscious. There is something deeply psychological and emotional that draws me to the material in the first place.

That's the way I will write characters, put a fair amount of myself in them, and then everyone else who was like that person, I will pick and choose.

The Statue of Liberty's gender changed nothing. It was the same here as anywhere: men and their wars.

You used to be able to tell a person's nationality by the face. Immigration ended that. Next you discerned nationality via the footwear. Globalization ended that.

My goal in life is to become an adjective.

On their best days, writers all over the world are winning Pulitzers, all alone in their studios, with no one watching.

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.