I was like a social worker for lepers. My clients had a chunk of their body they wanted to give away; for a price I was there to receive it.

I think it's more difficult writing what it's like to be a child. You can pretend you know what it's like, but you don't really know. The only parts I can remember is that the adults were like, "Aren't they cute?" But when you're little you're looking at the other kids like they're your colleagues. They're not like, "Oh, we're all cute little kids." They're more like your office acquaintances. It's very hard to grasp the memories of what it actually was like to be a kid.

I think powerful women don't care whether or not they're liked.

Crimes, sins, nightmares, hunks of hair: it was surprising how many of them has something to dispose of. The more I charged, the easier it was for them to breathe freely once more.

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.

If you want to write about a person who isn't nice, people say, "This is a bad book. It's about somebody I couldn't stand." But that's not the point. You don't have to like a character to like a book. Most of the time, people would misjudge and say, "I didn't like the book." No, you didn't like the character. That doesn't make it any less interesting of a book. In fact, to me, it makes it more interesting.

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