I don't find the idea of sewing degrading. A thing is degrading when you are forced to do it, through economic reasons or through slavery or some other form of compulsion.

The myth that everyone once read great literature is just a myth.

I've been involved in activities with other people who were put in jail. We were protesting the closing of the prison farm program at the prison I used in a previous book, Alias Grace. Some of us also put up money in order to save the heirloom herd of cows there. So I own half a cow!

Which of us can resist the temptation of being thought indispensable?

Old lovers go the way of old photographs, bleaching out gradually as in a slow bath of acid: first the moles and pimples, then the shadings. Then the faces themselves, until nothing remains but the general outlines.

Once upon a time, novelists of the 19th century, such as Charles Dickens, published in serial form.

Social media is called social media for a reason. It lends itself to sharing rather than horn-tooting.