First, you hand over some basics-overwhelming joy, existential angst, a giving-in to desire, etc. And then you promise to withstand talking idly about the weather, to encourage cliché, to uphold the virtues of average. You hand over the need to be understood and, in return, you get a bar of Normal soap. And you can wash in it and be daily reborn to a safe world of modest, enduring love or, at least, mild, well-mannered bonding.

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

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.

Beauty, you can find it here if you look hard enough.

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.

As a writer, my main objective is to tell the story urgently - as if whispering it into one ear - and to know the characters intimately.

The intricacy of plotting a thriller is akin to writing formal poetry.