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

To start with, look at all the books.

Scars crossed her welded wrists.

The Pulitzer Prize is an idea; it's a vote of confidence. Like literature, it exists purely in the mind.

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.

The humming of my parents' voices from behind my bedroom wall, which throughout my childhood had filled me with a sense of security, had now become a source of anxiety and panic.

I wanted to be an actor. My parents were not too keen on that.