 But what I hope for from a book - either one that I write or one that I read - is transparency. I want the story to shine through. I don't want to think of the writer. |
| When I read, I'm purely a reader. |
| When I'm working on something, I proceed as if no one else will ever read it. |
| People always call it luck when you've acted more sensibly than they have. |
| The hardest novel to write was Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant. |
| I just want to be told a story, and I want to believe I'm living that story, and I don't give a thought to influences or method or any other writerly concerns. |
| My family can always tell when I'm well into a novel because the meals get very crummy. |
| 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. |
| I don't want to say I hear voices; well, actually I do hear voices, but I don't think it's supernatural. I think it's just that when characters are given enough texture and backbone, then lo and behold, they stand on their own. |
| I forget a book as soon as I finish writing it, which is not always a good thing. |
| I save the best of myself for novels, and I believe it shows. |
| While armchair travelers dream of going places, traveling armchairs dream of staying put. |
| And I am interested in the fact that class is very much a factor in America, even though it's not supposed to be. |
| In real life I avoid all parties altogether, but on paper I can mingle with the best of them. |
| None of my own experiences ever finds its way into my work. However, the stages of my life - motherhood, middle age, etc. - often influence my subject matter. |
| 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? |
| I think it must be very hard to be one of the new young writers who are urged to put themselves forward when it may be the last thing on earth they'd be good at. |
| It seems to me that good novels celebrate the mystery in ordinary life, and summing it all up in psychological terms strips the mystery away. |
| Time, in general, has always been a central obsession of mine - what it does to people, how it can constitute a plot all on its own. So naturally, I am interested in old age. |
| 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 time and the psychic space, are easier now that my children are grown. |
