I grew up completely alone but with all the comforts of knowing I had a cushioning family structure around me - and yet I could free myself from it.

If you can read the world as a construct, you can ask questions of the construct, and you can suggest ways to change the construct.

When you fall in love with a book, something especially interesting and exciting is happening because of the way language works on us as human beings. And I love language.

I met an internationally esteemed writer at a literary party being given in her honor. She was wearing a beautiful pink, flouncy, frilly dress. I complimented her on it. She said, 'Ach, it's my nightgown. I couldn't decide what else to wear.'

Love and the imagination are connected.

I don't have a night stand. If I read at night in bed or too close to sleep-time, I lie awake thinking in the dark for hours.

I wouldn't call my work Modernist. I would rust if I try to think about labels. I'd feel like the Tin Man in 'The Wizard of Oz.'

The world asks us to be quickly readable, but the thing about human beings is that we are more than one thing. We are multiple selves. We are massively contradictory.

I'm quite good on the harmonica and can get a tune out of most musical instruments, so long as the tune is 'Oh Susannah.'

I'm happy to have nothing, so long as I'm sure I've been working.