I woke up one day and thought: I want to write a book about the history of my body. I could justify talking about my mother because it was in her body that my body began.

The kind of fiction I'm trying to write is about telling the truth.

If you're not ready for everything, you're not ready for anything.

I've been very lucky in this second marriage. It's just luck. It's absolute luck. And I can only marvel at it. So many other things could have happened that didn't, so overall I feel blessed.

In Invisible there's a lot about childhood, the death of the brother and then the relationship between the brother and sister.

When I am writing, even though it's hard and I do struggle often, I am happier than when I'm not writing. I feel alive. Whereas when I'm not writing, I feel like your common every-day neurotic.

After something crystallizes, I can write ferociously and write novels in six months, which in the past would have taken me two years.