The story has to flow from an unstructured, felt place, but then I have to bring my analytical brain to bear on issues of craft.

The language of the novel differs from the just-the-facts language of the old tales. It's robust and earthy, sometimes even baroque.

I guess I'm drawn to stories of people whose physicality puts them on the outside of things in order to explore the ways in which an identity is formed around these prevailing attitudes.

As we change, the way in which we are perceived in terms of our relevance, our value, our beauty, and sexual potency changes.

In fact, not knowing is a necessary condition of writing for me. I don't know how else to reach something unexpected. I have to be as in the dark as my characters.

We are like flowers always reaching up towards some shred of light. I find this wondrous, nearly magical, certainly brave.

But every age deserves its fashion and its forms, and no one can control what survives.