A writer who has published as many books as I have has developed, of necessity, a hide like a rhino's, while inside there dwells a frail, hopeful butterfly of a spirit.

"Politics" per se is absent from my writing but there is usually a moral (if ironic) compass.

As a farm girl, even when I was quite young, I had my 'farm chores' - but I had time also to be alone, to explore the fields, woods and creek side. And to read.

To be knocked out doesn't mean what it seems. A boxer does not have to get up.

After love a formal feeling comes.

How fascinating to a child are words: the shapes, sounds, textures and mysterious meanings of words; the way words link together into elastic patterns called "sentences." And these sentences into paragraphs, and beyond.

I love insult, it's always honest.