Now all the mute objects of my life seem to tell my story, to stretch back in time, if I look closely enough.

If I write a character, instead of looking from the outside, like maybe a journalist would, trying to describe them physically and figuring out what kind of things they might be interested in or have in their house, I don't really do it that way. I try to feel what it would be like to be inside this person, to be them.

I think the suicides in my first book came from the idea of growing up in Detroit. If you grow up in a city like that you feel everything is perishing, evanescent and going away very quickly.

The mind self-edits. The mind airbrushes. It's a different thing to be inside a body than outside. From outside, you can look, inspect, compare. From inside there is no comparison.

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

If you talk to geneticists they are constantly finding that your genes are being switched on and off because of the environment. Genes alone do not determine an exact path in your life.

Pregnancy humbles husbands. After an initial rush of male pride they quickly recognise the minor role that nature had assigned them in the drama of reproduction.