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.

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

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

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

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.

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