When I was five I learned to read. Books were a miracle to me - white pages, black ink, and new worlds and different friends in each one. To this day, I relish the feeling of cracking a binding for the first time, the anticipation of where I'll go and whom I'll meet inside.

Tell the story that's been growing in your heart, the characters you can't keep out of your head, the tale story that speaks to you, that pops into your head during your daily commute, that wakes you up in the morning.

I was 45 when I wrote most of this book [Hungry Heart ], at what felt like a halfway point in my life, and I thought, If I can't be honest now, when will it happen? It was so hard to step away from the [protection of] fiction, but I'm ready to talk start telling their truth.

I grew up with a feminist mom and the understanding that, as someone coming from a position of (relative) privilege, it was my job to speak up when things weren't fair.

I don't like futons. They can't commit. I'm a bed! I'm a couch! I'm a bed! I'm a couch!

I don't particularly like being angry about stuff. I'd rather hang out with my daughter and write my little books.

Right now women are using surrogates because they can't be pregnant. What worries me is the possibility that soon they'll use surrogates because they don't want to be pregnant.