Because answers are inert things that stop inquiry. They make you think you have finished looking. But you are never finished. There are always discoveries that will turn everything you think you know on its head and that will make you ask all over again: Who are we?

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

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

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.

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

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

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.