The - the sort of thing that I want to do is to strike a resonant chord of universality in other people, which is best done by fiction.

I want to tell you that I love you I want to tell you that I love you I want to tell you that I love I love I love I love but you do not.

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.

Getting the first draft finished is like pushing a peanut with your nose across a very dirty floor.

I love insult, it's always honest.

People have libraries at home, they have bookshelves, they have CDs. And they sort of try, people try to bring great artists into their lives, into their physical houses and sort of live with portions of them. But they're not really deeply engaging with them.

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.