Literature is about being a complex, contradictory human being.

Reading and thoughtfulness and openness are the best way, I should think, to begin to address the richness that is in each of us.

Everyone needs a strong sense of self. It is our base of operations for everything that we do in life.

How we lie to ourselves when we've fallen in love with the wrong man.

I admit that for me love goes deeper than the struggle, or maybe what I mean is, love is the deeper struggle.

It's always gratifying to hear from a passionate reader, and as a longtime educator, I'm especially pleased and heartened when that reader is a young student who is inspired to write me and let me know that my book has helped him or her find her way.

Schools provide safe spaces to talk about controversial issues, and literature presents characters portraying human experience in all its richness and contradictoriness.