When I was pregnant, I felt filled with life, and I felt really happy. I ate well, and I slept well. I felt much more useful than I'd ever felt before.

I think people are sexy when they have a sense of humor, when they are smart, when they have some sense of style, when they are kind, when they express their own opinions, when they are creative, when they have character.

You have to defend your honor. And your family.

Girls are crazy and mean. They don't fight fair.

I still consider myself a feminist.

Some girls are taught to be sexy.

There are no rules in fights with girls. Just hurting.

My mother wanted me to understand that as a woman I could do pretty much whatever I wanted to, that I didn't have to use sex or sexuality to define myself.

Writing in other voices is almost Japanese in the sense that there's a certain formality there which allows me to sidestep the embarrassment of directly expressing to complete strangers the most intimate details of my life.

To me, a feminist belongs in the same category as a humanist or an advocate for human rights. I don't see why someone who's a feminist should be thought of differently.

A lot of my writing is not terribly civilized.

Don't make a threat and then not do it.

How weird it was to drive streets I knew so well. What a different perspective.

I don't think gender is aesthetically defining for me.

I was always inventing characters and making up stories.

I wouldn't characterize my work, however, as directly political.

It takes as much discipline to be a mother and a wife as it does to do anything else.

My intellect has always been more responsible than my emotions for how I respond to the world.

Writing is always personal in some way but not always in a direct way.

I had some fears as a kid, but I was also relatively fearless. Maybe that's a result of living half the time in reality and the other half in fantasy.