Long after the bomb falls and you and your good deeds are gone, cockroaches will still be here, prowling the streets like armored cars.

Whether I'm critically well received, whether or not I sell books - of course it becomes progressively harder to get them published - nevertheless, it's what I do, every day.

I felt my whole life was a facsimile of a life.

The novel is never really in the first draft. The novel really happens in the revisions.

I'm writing what I want to write. But it's almost an act of rebellion on my part. Because as a person, I've always wanted to be very likeable, and I think that's a horrible thing, particularly for women. You're always like, "Oh, I hope I didn't hurt anyone's feelings. I hope they like me!" And that's just so stupid.

I think in a lot of ways, writing, when you're really in there, is like being an actress because you're in somebody else's head.

In my writing I wanted to be liked for writing really unlikeable stuff. There were books that people, particularly women, hated so much. They said, "I threw it against the wall!" Which, in my opinion, was a compliment. Because it's very hard to get somebody to throw something.