I can't do Los Angeles. I've always been the anti-Barbie. I don't want to be in a place where almost every woman walks around with puffy lips, little noses and breasts large enough to nourish a small country.

The experience of giving birth itself made me feel more womanly.

When I look at female characters, I want to recognize myself in them - my trials, my tribulations as a mother, as a wife, as a lover, as a daughter.

It's such a measure of your solidarity with Ed, that when you would give lectures, he would be wearing a tartan tie that matched. And I demanded that outfit, I thought it was so punk - her long skirt, she looked like a Scottish queen, so regal.

Your soul either feels lifted by something that you read, or it feels squashed by it.

I have a lot of frustration with religion, organized religion, because it's man-made, because it's man-regulated. And it has nothing to do with my relationship with God.

Just because I’m telling a story about a woman losing faith is not my rebellion against what I grew up in. If anything, it really affected the way I approached the story, and in fact, approach everything. I don’t judge my characters.