I believe in the power of song. Under the spell of the right song, passion is within reach, love is close by, and you are not alone!

I want to make hand-held music, undiminished by the need to make everybody in the world listen at once. The goal is to ride into the sunset, stereo blasting, and all of what's got you worried will disappear in the rear view mirror!

Well, I think that if you sincerely try to imagine what life is like for another person - not in a mocking way, not in a satirical way, but in a sincere, compassionate way - I don't think that's exploitive.

High school is very intense for everyone. But at a boarding school, because you're there 24 hours a day, everything gets magnified.

I do think I was trying to entertain the reader more than I was trying to purge myself.

I don't think it's shameful to admit that some days your time can be better spent reading than writing.

I feel like if you read something, and it makes you so curious about a topic that you then go read something else, that's exciting.

I just think that people are complicated, both men and women. It happens that I write more about women.

I just write the books that I think I would want to read.

I think in general, novels by men tend to be taken more seriously than novels by women.

I'm able to separate fiction and reality. I guess it remains to be seen if other people are.

I'm so trying to give up meat.

In some ways I think it would be very dignified if I went away for twenty years and then wrote my fourth book.

Personally, I have never wished I were a male novelist.

The fact is that in this day and age I don't think any novelist can assume that a book will get attention.

There are so many people who are so much better qualified to write about politics than I am.

Well, I think in my first two novels, both the characters are pretty neurotic, which I would say that I am.

When I was writing my first two books I was also freelancing and teaching and doing other odd jobs.

I don't really have special rituals, but I don't try to write fiction unless I have a minimum of a few hours. For me, it takes a while to settle into a mode where I'm truly concentrating.

I have this theory that the likeability question comes up so much more with female characters created by female authors than it does with male characters and male authors.