Not being published would be great. When I say that to other writers they look at me as if I'm totally insane.

When I'm writing, my neural pathways get blocked. I can't read. I can barely hold a conversation without forgetting words and names. I wish I could wear the same clothes and eat the same food each day.

I did feel when my mother died if anyone was going to haunt me it would be her. And she hasn't, so I think it is possibly the end.

I spent four years doing a doctorate in postmodern American literature. I can recognize it when I see it.

The past is what you take with you.

Julia's vocabulary was "chock-full" of strangely archaic words - "spiffing," "crumbs," "jeepers" - that seemed to have originated in some prewar girls' annual rather than in Julia's own life. For Jackson, words were functional, they helped you get to places and explain things. For Julia, they were freighted with inexplicable emotion.

I am mad, I think. I am mad therefore I think. I am mad therefore I think I am.