Imagine if you succeeded in making the world perfect for your children what a shock the rest of life would be for them.

I do not outline. There are writers I know and count as my friends who certainly do it the other way but for me part of the adventure is not knowing how it's going to turn out.

Although Salinger had long since cut me out of his life completely and made it plain that he had nothing but contempt for me, the thought of becoming the object of his wrath was more than I felt ready to take on.

I think of myself as a realistic writer, not a creator of soap opera or melodrama.

No, I said. I didn't remember that. There was so much to remember, sometimes the best thing was to forget.

For 25 years, I did take my responsibilities as a pleaser of others sufficiently seriously.

Growing up in the fifties and sixties, I can only remember knowing one child, ever, whose parents got a divorce, and hardly any whose mother "worked" at anything besides raising her children.