I never know where I'm headed when I'm working on a book.

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.

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

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

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

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