My ambition was to live like music.

When you're writing a story, you're creating something of an artificial ending.

Human beings look so different from each other, voices are so different, everything about us is so individual, and that's so exciting and juicy and appealing, and we're attached to these things and they're so fascinating and beautiful - I don't just mean model-beautiful, but all the individual forms that people can take.

The hurts of childhood that must be avenged: so small and so huge.

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."

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.

My ambition was to live like music.