"It seems to me that since I've had children, I've grown richer and deeper. They may have slowed down my writing for a while, but when I did write, I had more of a self to speak from."

"The one ironclad rule is that I have to try. I have to walk into my writing room and pick up my pen every weekday morning."

"My family can always tell when I'm well into a novel because the meals get very crummy."

"The hardest novel to write was Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant."

"I don't type [when I write] because . . . I often have the feeling that everything flows directly from my right hand."

"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."

"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 how the work will look from the outside."

"I didn't really choose to write; I more or less fell into it."

"I'm too shy for personal appearances, and I've found out that anytime I talk about my writing, I can't do any writing for many weeks afterward."

"I do write long, long character notes - family background, history, details of appearance - much more than will ever appear in the novel. I think this is what lifts a book from that early calculated, artificial stage."