I remember the time I said, 'I don't think you love yourself. You need to learn to love yourself.'

I don't have an opinion about whether or not politics should appear more in fiction or not, generally. I think politics are a part of life, but a part of life that most people don't think about very much, most of the time. Or, people think about it superficially and they talk about it superficially because they don't know very much.

I think that politics in most people's lives expresses itself like that: indirectly, in half thought-out opinions and feelings. And sometimes through a connection with something that is very real. But we don't have the knowledge or language to speak about it.

That's why every society on the planet has very definite rules, ideas about how sex should be regulated, how sex should be expressed, what's okay, what's not okay. And I guess we do live in a place, and have for a long time, where there's more openness and there's more willingness to tolerate different kinds of behavior, but with that comes people creating other rules and other kinds of controls. It's always going to be a question of what's acceptable and what isn't and what's the danger point and what rouses people's contempt and what people are allowed to get away with.

Partly, I'm worried that no one is saying anything because they are afraid of being seen as politically correct.

I think women who are very creative and giving members of society can be respected and accepted.

Whenever young writers ask me for advice, I always say you have to be able to take a lot of rejection because, unless you're very lucky, that's what's going to happen.