I unlearned the model of being an editor like Ezra Pound with T.S. Eliot, the unconscious belief that America was the center of the world, and that honesty meant saying what I thought and always being direct.

Conversation on the page should reflect what the story is about. It doesn't have to be "realistic" in the sense that it's something you heard and plugged into a story.

Do the obvious, you won't forget it. Do the obvious, you won't regret it. Obvious, obvious, obvious.

That's why our comics are important: they're pointing things out and laughing at the same time. There have been horrible, horrible times in history. They're mostly horrible times. But not to laugh? Not to find humor in something like dark optimism/bright pessimism - I think that's sad, frankly.

Now that I'm an older woman, I'm so much more aware of the changes - almost too aware. I feel sorry for being so dismissive. You have to think about what you're thinking about and realize that you're thinking it.

Reading gave me great comfort and pleasure. When I started being able to write, around seven or eight, I wanted to be able to do that myself, to create that other world.

The Dutch and the English, former competitors for world dominance, taught me the wisdom of waiting as well as withholding.