Every mother I've ever met, pretty much without exception, is doing the best job she can ever do.

I think I'm much more comfortable talking about other books than my own!

Being a novelist is hard for anyone - male or female. You don't get to quit your day job.

People will want you to behave a certain way, to make a certain choice because it reinforces the way they see the world...But you have to do what's right for you.

I get really starstruck and tongue tied when I'm around other writers and the conversation tends not to go well.

...thinking that the world was like an orange, that I could split it open with my thumbnail and find a whole different world, the grown-up world, the secrets beneath the skin.

Read everything. Read fiction and non-fiction, read hot best sellers and the classics you never got around to in college.