In a way, this kind of insight or recognition often permeates the way I think of character, how I plot action, and the way in which I use imagery, seeing binaries as false.

I don't really get into the power sufficiently, and that's also a problem for me.

Growing up in Asia in a particular time period - the '50s and '60s - I attended a Catholic missionary school where I was taught by nuns and where consciousness of the body was repressed. Yet at the same time, the female body was a highly visible and sensitive site.

I really felt neurotic - it was a neurotic reason - but I had to teach very, very well. That sucked up a lot of oxygen from my time and my creative thinking.

"Time" does not mean "occasion."

I feel compassionate, because I know [students] all have to go down this road of suffering and it's going to be tough.

After Fifty Shades of Grey, I think my writing is pretty tame, isn't it?