I think because mothers usually are the people who take care of us when we're little, and when we're little those mothers are omnipotent, perhaps men even more than women don't like to think about that dependency. That dependency is horror.

Every sickness has an alien quality, a feeling of invasion and loss of control that is evident in the language we use about it.

All human states are organic brain states - happiness, sadness, fear, lust, dreaming, doing math problems and writing novels - and our brains are not static.

It is fascinating to me that when the lists of the great writers are trotted out year after year, you often find lists without a single woman mentioned.

I will turn human anatomy into roses and stars and sea. I will dissect the beloveds body in metaphor.

Dreams are stories made by and for the dreamer.

Great books are the ones that are urgent, life-changing, the ones that crack open the reader’s skull and heart.