I think having a great range of experiences in my life had helped me as a writer, particularly a writer of fiction. I have known a great many different sorts of people in different situations, and I have a notion how very well of badly people can behave in times of stress or danger or violence.

I don't even remember what Mother and I quarreled about: it is a continual quarrel that began when I reached puberty.

When midlist writers are treated like dirt, I would desist were I less stubborn and less committed.

The real writer is one who really writes.

I am a driven writer. I feel guilty if I don't write, not self-indulgent if I do.

I wrote to make sense out of all the contradictions I experienced and to deal with the pain and loss I was undergoing.

It hurts to love wide open stretching the muscles... It hurts to thwart the reflexes of grab, of clutch; to love and let go again and again.