If you feel strongly about people having abortions, don't have one. But we are a country - USA - that likes to be punitive. We want to restrict. It is a kind of religious fervor run amuck.

It is exhausting to be seventeen and not know who you are.

I always know more about the ending, even the aftermath to the ending, than I know about the beginning. And so there's a construction that works from back to front.

My dear boy, please don’t put a label on me—don’t make me a category before you get to know me!

Sell my old clothes - I'm off to heaven

It's because even a good man can't always be right, that we need ... rules.

You don't want to be ungenerous toward people who give you prizes, but it is never the social or political message that interests me in a novel. I begin with an interest in a relationship, a situation, a character.