Not until the final draft do I force myself to remember that I’m going to have to think about how it will affect other people.

You know why I like to talk to you, Delia? You never interrupt with your experiences. Not jiggling your foot till you get a chance to jump in with your life history.

For me, writing something down was the only road out.

I’m falling into disrepair

I was standing in the schoolyard waiting for a child when another mother came up to me. Have you found work yet? she asked. Or are you still just writing?

She thinks the people she loves are better than they really are, and so then she starts changing things around to suit her view of them

She worded it a bit strongly, but I do find myself more and more struck by the differences between the sexes. To put it another way: All marriages are mixed marriages.

Past is past… no it’s not! People are always fond of saying that, but what’s past is never past; not entirely.

I can never tell ahead of time which book will give me trouble – some balk every step of the way, others seem to write themselves – but certainly the mechanics of writing, finding the...

For me, writing was the only way out.

I would advise any beginning writer to write the first drafts as if no one else will ever read them – without a thought about publication – and only in the last draft to consider...

I remember leaving the hospital – thinking, ‘Wait, are they going to let me just walk off with him? I don’t know beans about babies! I don’t have a license to do this.’ [We’re] just...

The Amateur Marriage grew out of the reflection that of all the opportunities to show differences in character, surely an unhappy marriage must be the richest.

Epictetus say that everything has two handles, one by which it can be borne and one which it cannot. If your brother sins against you, he says, don’t take hold of it by the wrong...

I consciously try to end my novels at a point where I won’t have to wonder about my characters ever again.

The very thing that attracts you to someone can end up putting you off.

I’ll write maybe one long paragraph describing the events, then a page or two breaking the events into chapters, and then reams of pages delving into my characters. After that, I’m ready to begin.