The way I see it,” she began, “your mother’s devoted her whole life to you kids.” She said “you kids” in precisely the same tone I would have used for “you infestation of cockroaches

Writing let me escape... It let me escape the insistent tug of my family, and its ongoing misery. Sitting in front of the computer, with the screen blank and the cursor blinking, was the best escape I knew. And there was plenty to escape from.

They wouldn’t have believed me, and if they had they would have wanted me to explain. And I had no explanation, no answers. When you’re on a battleground, you don’t have the luxury of time to dwell on the various historical factors and sociopolitical influences that caused the war. You just keep your head down and try to survive it, to shove the pages back in the book, close the covers and pretend that nothing’s broken, nothing’s wrong.

Do I want to spend my diminished working hours writing or answering email? Now I have somebody read through them. If someone has something really important to tell me I write back. Otherwise they get the auto reply.

I want to live in a world where people are judged by who they are instead of what size they wear.

They say - "they" being the great philosophers, or possibly the cast of Seinfeld - that breaking up is like pushing over a Coke machine. You can't just do it, you have to set the thing in motion, rock it back and forth a few times.

Back in the day, when I was starting out, I'd get five or 10 emails and I'd respond to every one. But after my third or fourth book it got too time-consuming.