I'm interested in endurance. People persist in the face of the most excruciating hardships.

Why did people try to shush trouble away as if it were an unruly child?

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

We grow, we mature, some of us give birth, we age, we die.

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

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.

Writing, for me, is always a dance between the critical part of my brain and the subconscious.