People know the difference between good and evil in their hearts-if they search them. Religions twist good and evil. Their differences are the kind that need to be taught because they aren't natural.

The fact is there are many women who nod politely, even agree openly within their male-dominated often highly educated cultures, but vote their own minds.

Sometimes when reading aloud to my husband, I'll start crying. It completely stuns me. As if the words in my body and on the page - in relation to each other - are cocooned against my own feelings about what I'm writing until they're loosed in the air and become their own. Then I realize what I may or may not have done.

A good novel doesn't just transcend the boundaries of its target market - it knows nothing about target markets.

The generation of women who came before us did much of our shouting. They laid the groundwork and now we can be calm and constant and steady.

Writing is my obsession, my passion. My relationship with it is one of the most complex and agonizing and richly vexing that I have in my life.

Love is a luxury. It's something that people are allowed to indulge in when they're not simply trying to survive and keep other people alive.