I'm not interested in safety. A great risk in writing is imagining you have something to protect. Playing it safe to placate someone or something. People talk about compromise, but often people don't even know when they're compromising, because they're not conscious of contradictions.

Wanting to know all kinds of things is perfect for novelists, because novelists are generalists. We're not specialists in anything, except, hopefully, writing.

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.

There are lots of unlikable characters in literature. It doesn't mean they're not fascinating.

The idea of equality is misunderstood. I wouldn't ever argue that everyone is the same, but that differences should not be hierarchical. Attitudes and expectations have been imposed on both men and women. For instance, men had very little to do with the raising of their children before the women's movement. The women's movement has freed men to become more active as fathers. We're living in a period of transition, but change can be much slower than we want, with unintended consequences, and can also be happening without our seeing it.

I don't believe a picture is worth a thousand words, unless they're very confusing words.

I think the major device for me is that narrator's voice. I'm always trying to find a different kind of form to tell whatever story it is, and I wish that weren't so, because it drives me crazy.