And so it happened again, the daily miracle whereby interiority opens out and brings to bloom the million-petalled flower of being here, in the world, with other people. Neither as hard as she had thought it might be nor as easy as it appeared.

Time is how you spend your love.

The arena of women's lives is somewhat more intimate. If a woman goes out with an incredibly attractive man and they break up, that woman is not more attractive to men. It's completely irrelevant to them. That's an example of the way women's minds work.

I do my best work under pressure, so I’ll nick an artery, and my husband isn’t allowed to stanch the bleeding till I’ve banged out a chapter.

When I was young, I was very technical about these things. I didn't like to admit to any intimate relation with what I was writing.

First rule of writing: When still a child, make sure you read a lot of books. Spend more time doing this than anything else.

One thing you learn about the novel as a form is that it's always smarter than you are.