I'm interested in the Gothic novel because it's very much a woman's form. Why is there such a wide readership for books that essentially say, 'Your husband is trying to kill you'?

...how much needless despair has been caused by a series of biological mismatches, a misalignment of the hormones and pheromones? Resulting in the fact that the one you love so passionately won't or can't love you. As a species we're pathetic that way: imperfectly monogamous.

A man is just a woman's strategy for making other women.

When any civilization is dust and ashes," he said, "art is all that's left over. Images, words, music. Imaginative structures. Meaning—human meaning, that is—is defined by them. You have to admit that.

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

These things sneak up on him for no reason, these flashes of irrational happiness. It's probably a vitamin deficiency.

You need a certain amount of nerve to be a writer, an almost physical nerve, the kind you need to walk a log across a river.