I don’t want these memories to become slippery, to just disappear into the thin air of life the way most things seem to. I want them to stick – even the bad ones – so I repeat them often.

The one reader I'm trying to please as I write is me, and I'm pretty difficult to please.

That's how you know you really trust someone, I think; when you don't have to talk all the time to make sure they still like you or prove that you have interesting stuff to say.

My first job is to write the characters as full and authentic people as well as I can.

I don't like to do too much psychological research because it might turn a character into a patchwork.

It's as if once you hit high school, you're programmed, like a robot, to be an asshole to your parents.

There were about ten years of trying, failing, trying again, suffering rejection, etc. My first published book, 'Story of a Girl', was the fourth book I wrote.