I don't believe the world's a particularly beautiful place, but I do believe in redemption.

It's not very fashionable, but I love life, and I believe that things disappear and reappear and nothing ever solidifies, no matter how middle-class, housebroken, staid, and solitary someone's life seems to be. That, I think, is what I'm writing about.

I don't believe a poet has a better hold on truth or morality than a fiction writer has. And I don't think a fiction writer has anything over a journalist. It's all about the good word, properly inserted.

Women get the short shrift in history. It's been largely written and dictated by men, or at least men believe that we own it, and women have really been in those quieter moments at the edge of history. But, really, they're the ones who are turning the cogs and the wheels and allowing things like the peace process to happen.