I think those women who get themselves to write essays, it's not an easy thing to do because as women, you're not encouraged to think; you're encouraged to feel. This is a broad, broad statement. So I think those women who go out on a limb and publish essays are highly conscious of how they are writing their opinions.

As a reader myself, which precedes my being a writer, of course, I read in order to enter another world.

Now that I am conscious of the world of chronic pain, when I see somebody walking down the street who's having trouble, I feel a sadness for them. I notice.

I subject my sentences and the words to a kind of Grand Inquisition.

I'm interested in reality but I'm not interested in realism at all.

I think some people are not interesting to themselves. They're the sad, resigned folk. When people call themselves ordinary - "I'm just an ordinary person" - you do wonder what they mean, because people who call themselves ordinary occasionally turn out to be serial killers. Beware of those who say they're ordinary.

There's not usually one reason why we do anything and, in fact, often we don't know why we've done what we've done, especially what we have said or why, for instance, in conversation, which can be very tricky. Finally, we say something and think, "Why did we say that?" In retrospect we might know.