Women are constantly underestimated in our power, our reach, our collective pull.

I didn't start writing so that I could more deeply know myself. I was bored of myself, my life, my childhood, my hometown. I started writing as a way to know others, to get away from myself.

Writers aren't born properly labeled so it is hard to know one when one appears.

I am deeply Catholic and always will be, but I'm no longer a member of the church. I left in 2003 because of the sex abuse scandal.

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.

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.

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.