Sometimes that's a year, sometimes it's 18 months, where all I'm doing is taking notes. I'm reconstructing the story from the back to the front so that I know where the front is.

What was even more germane was my study of the history of religion. It was one of the few things in school I was fascinated by.

You've got to get obsessed and stay obsessed.

They all settled into being the kind of friends when they heard from each other.... or when they occasionally got together. And when they were not in touch, they did not think of one another.

The book works better if I know everything I can about the ending. Not just what happens, but how it happens and what the language is; not just the last sentence, but enough of the sentences surrounding that last sentence to know what the tone of voice is. I imagined it as something almost musical. Then you are writing toward something; you know the sound of your voice at the end of the story. That's how you want to sound in those final sentences: the degree that it is uplifting or not, the degree that it is melancholic or not.

It is hard work and great art to make life not so serious.

Because abortions are illegal, women who need and want them have no choice in the matter, and you-because you know how to perform them-have no choice, either