Every utopia - let's just stick with the literary ones - faces the same problem: What do you do with the people who don't fit in?

The object is very clear in the fight against racism; you have reasons why you're opposed to it. But when you're writing a novel, you don't want the reader to come out of it voting yes or no to some question. Life is more complicated than that.

Because I am a mother, I am capable of being shocked: as I never was when I was not one.

I don't think it's a question of whether you eat meat. It's a question of what kind of meat, and where it comes from.

Just as if you do a mash-up of reality from the point of view of African Americans in this country, you're going to end up with something that will say, "This is Black Lives Matter." It's not that people necessarily have started out from that premise. But if you're looking at reality, that will be the result because that is reality.

To want is to have a weakness.

A non-event ... is better to write about than an event, because with a non-event you can make up the meaning yourself, it means whatever you say it means.