I learned long ago that being Lewis Carroll was infinitely more exciting than being Alice.

For the writer, the serial killer is, abstractly, an analogue of the imagination's caprices and amorality; the sense that, no matter the dictates and even the wishes of the conscious social self, the life or will or purpose of the imagination is incomprehensible, unpredictable.

Yet I will make you all love me and I will punish myself to spite your love.

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

My own way of writing is very meditated and, despite my reputation, rather slow-moving. So I do spend a good deal of time contemplating endings. The final ending is usually arrived at simply by intuition.

Cherie, keep walking. Shut your eyes. We are headed for the bridge. We are going to cross it.

Running! If there's any activity happier, more exhilarating, more nourishing to the imagination, I can't think what it might be. In running the mind flies with the body; the mysterious efflorescence of language seems to pulse in the brain, in rhythm with our feet and the swinging of our arms.