We need to stop playing Privilege or Oppression Olympics because we'll never get anywhere until we find more effective ways of talking through difference. We should be able to say, “This is my truth,” and have that truth stand without a hundred clamoring voices shouting, giving the impression that multiple truths cannot coexist.

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.

The designation is useful and necessary and sometimes limiting but it is only limiting to people who think, for example, that African-American literature couldn't possibly be something they could be interested in or relate to. They have limited imaginations, which is sad.

What is it like to be connected to someone you can never get away from, for better or worse? I love trying to answer that question.

I read constantly because there is so much to learn from the writing in the world.

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

Some women being empowered does not prove the patriarchy is dead. It proves that some of us are lucky.