I have to write. I have to be an artist.

I live on the margin of just about everything. I'm a marginal person, and I think that is where I've become comfortable. I'm marginally there in my native life. I can do as much as I can, but I'm always German, too, you know, and I'm always a mother. That's my first identity, but I'm always a writer, too.

Nothing I write ever has a moral. If it seems to a reader that there is one, that is unintentional.

I write first drafts by hand. Never do I open an umbrella inside the house. I don't predict wins or losses. I used to stand on a certain piece of rug if my brothers and husband were watching football and their team got in trouble - but now the luck went out of that rug. If a circle is involved, I try to go clockwise.

I grew up in Wahpeton, N.D., and I didn't leave until I was 18, and I've kept going back.

Talking about how I might write the next book is like talking about whether or not to have sex. Any dithering ruins it.

Most writers have been influenced by Faulkner.

My parents' marriage is a gift to everyone around them - 60 years of making their kids laugh. How many parents are actually funny?

My grandfather was a persuasive man who made friends with people at every level of influence. In order to fight against our tribe's termination, he went to newspapers and politicians and urged them to advocate for our tribe in Washington. He also supported his family through the Depression as a truck farmer.

You know, some people fall right through the hole in their lives. It's invisible, but they come to it after time, never knowing where.