If men are paid/praised more than women for the same work than it always pays to allow the man to have more freedom to pour himself into his work - think of athletes, actors over the age of 28, lawyers, accountants, college deans.

Literature has done great work for feminism - writing and reading are a practice of empathy - and great literature will continue to do so.

Love is selfless, it is a weakness, a giving in, a constant falling.

I'm about to start something new. I'm waiting to be whelmed. The whelming as you start something new is quite something.

Red Sox fans have been pushed to the brink over the years, but that's how faith grows stronger.

One of the reasons I write in different genres is that I get to have the feeling - even fleetingly - that I'm not just writing like Baggott again. I can escape myself.

When a colleague of mine had a notable New York Times book, I said, turn one of the chapters in the collection into a pitch for a novel and sell it to your publisher.