Such is the lot of the narcissist’s child, to inherit her parent’s umbrage over the world’s indifference.

Read everything! I believe that reading made me a writer.

Some weeks there’s no writing, and some weeks are full of writing.

The hard thing for me is to say no to people.

Yes, I do sew. I started when I was around 8 or 9 and have been doing it off and on since then.

How much do we owe the people we love? Now I would add a follow-up question: How do we cope with the fact that we can’t necessarily give the people we love what they need?

I did have imprinted on me the idea of trauma that changes things dramatically and suddenly. As a writer, I return to that again and again because it fascinates me, and it’s where I come...

I write pretty much when I can. I used to be very particular about needing certain conditions for writing, but when I had children, I discovered that I was a lot more flexible than I...

I’m happy to see book clubs on TV. Talking about books has always been an important and invigorating part of reading them, and it’s nice that that is getting attention from the media.

Meaning bad isn’t the issue. Meaning you do what you do. Not without consequences for other people, of course, sometimes very grave ones. But it’s not very helpful to regard your choices as a series...

It paid barely a living wage, but he stayed with it—gradually and in the end gratefully arriving at the point in life when you understand there are no great changes ahead.