I write in longhand and assemble lots of notes, and then I try to collate them into a coherent chronology. It's like groping along in the dark. I like writing and find it challenging, but I don't find it easy.

I can't say I was a very successful sorority girl.

The novel is the affliction for which only the novel is the cure.

In a family, what isn't spoken is what you listen for. But the noise of a family is to drown it out.

The relationship between parents and children, but especially between mothers and daughters, is tremendously powerful, scarcely to be comprehended in any rational way.

I am what would be called a 'mainstream feminist,' not a radical feminist.

Ultimately, we measure ourselves against our own ideas of idealism and perfection, and we don't always come very close to them.