Wasn't the whole point of being an artist, or at least part of it, that you didn't have to wear a tie?

You had only one chance for a signature in life, but most people left no impression.

People could not get enough of what they had lost, even if they no longer wanted it.

When I wrote The Interestings, I wanted to let time unspool, to give the book the feeling of time passing. I had to allow myself the freedom to move back and forth in time freely, and to trust that readers would accept this.

Being an adult child was an awkward, inevitable position. You went about your business in the world: tooling around, giving orders, being taken seriously, but there were still these two people lurking somewhere who in a split second could reduce you to nothing. In their presence, you were a big-headed baby again, crawling instead of walking.

Both my mother and I have close groups of friends that include other writers, and these friendships are very important to us.

I have never been much of a researcher