I am human. I am messy. I'm not trying to be an example. I am not trying to be perfect. I am not trying to say I have all the answers. I am not trying to say I'm right. I am just trying - trying to support what I believe in, trying to do some good in this world, trying to make some noise with my writing while also being myself.

You have to be consistent. You have to be yourself. You have to be committed to what you're doing. You have to not be afraid to be ambitious.

Feminism is a choice, and if a woman does not want to be a feminist, that is her right, but it is still my responsibility to fight for her rights. I believe feminism is grounded in supporting the choices of women even if we wouldn't make certain choices for ourselves. I believe women not just in the United States but throughout the world deserve equality and freedom but know I am in no position to tell women of other cultures what that equality and freedom should look like.

I thought a lot about how so many memoirs about fatness focus on weight loss; they don't focus on living with weight in a world that is rather inhospitable to it. So I knew that was the idea that was going to be most interesting and most challenging, and I like to be challenged as a writer.

Readers need to stop assuming characters are white if race isn't explicitly defined.

I probably write the same story a hundred different ways. I suppose right now I am looking for the 101st different way to write that same story. And the 102nd, and 103rd and 111th and 133rd.

That the question of likability even exists in literary conversations is odd. It implies that we are engaging in a courtship. When characters are unlikable, they don’t meet our mutable, varying standards. Certainly we can find kinship in fiction, but literary merit shouldn’t be dictated by whether we want to be friends or lovers with those about whom we read.