Nearly every morning, a certain woman in our community comes running out of her house with her face white and her overcoat flapping wildly. She cries out, "Emergency, emergency," and one of us runs to her and holds her until her fears are calmed. We know she is making it up; nothing is has really happened to her. But we understand, because there is hardly one of us who has no been moved at some time to do just what she has done, and every time, it has taken all our strength, and even the strength of our friends and families, too, to keep us quiet.

Because I'm not writing all the time (thank goodness), my mind is sometimes pleasantly blank.

I never dream in French, but certain French words seem better or more fun than English words - like 'pois chiches' for chick peas!

Samuel Johnson Is Indignant:that Scotland has so few trees.

Part of my mind is working on how to end the thing while I'm going on. You need at least two brains to write.

I looked like a woman in glasses, but I had dreams of leading a very different kind of life, the life of a woman who would not wear glasses, the kind of woman I saw from a distance now and then in a bar.

I started with small-press publishers, who were willing to publish all sorts of forms. I didn't move to the larger presses until they knew what they were getting in for.