People still think that a woman who doesn't have children or doesn't want children is really lacking in something. I've seen this over and over again in my life. I've had this thinking used against me repeatedly. I remember I had a therapist once, and I brought this up, and she said, "Well, I think women who don't have children feel very self-critical. They feel bad, so they think other people are critical in that way."

He had lunch with Cecilia that afternoon. They ate their corned beef on rye and cream cheese with lox in a diner peopled by waiters who looked like they´d met with utter disappointment and become attached to it.

What are you thinking?” She asks. -That you are beautiful. That not everyone could see it. I almost became the kind of person who could not.

I think politics are a part of life, so I have no resistance to it, but it's not something I set out to do.

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.

Death is a big theme in the book, illness. What is that? It's a fact that human beings - no matter who they are, no matter how healthy or strong or beautiful they are - are going to age and become weak and ugly by a certain standard, and die. And I think that's a terrifying idea for people to get their minds around.

There isn't going to be anyone to tell you what to do most of the time. It has to be your own decision and you have to learn to trust that, or learn that it's wrong. The hard truth is that there are people who believe they're writers and work hard at it and are sincere about it, but they don't make it. You have to be prepared for that possibility.