Short things are short all over and long things are long all over.

Success and money can really be quite blinding.

The fact is, the media never gets off the interstate unless there's a major explosion.

We are all naturally xenophobic.

Writers can write outside their ethnicity or sex depending how open and vulnerable they wish to be.

Writing as a woman presents enormous problems but I have attempted it several times and haven't had many complaints.

Yeah, but now suddenly - you know, universities are notoriously market oriented, too.

I asked a French critic a couple of years ago why my books did so well in France. He said it was because in my novels people both act and think. I got a kick out of that.

I couldn't run a tight schedule, and if you're any good at teaching, you get sucked dry because you like your students and you're trying to help them, but you don't have any time left to write yourself.

The old fun thing is when somebody typed up the first chapter of War and Peace. And then made a precis of the rest of it and sent it out and only one publisher recognized it.

The trajectory started when I was on the roof of our house looking out at a swamp when I was 19. I had written for several years, starting at about 15, but that day on the roof I took my vows and acknowledged my calling.

There is a neurologist, a woman over at Harvard who wanted me to come talk to them, and in France I have a lot of readers in the sciences. I can't tell you why.

Some people hear their own inner voices with great clearness. And they live by what they hear. Such people become crazy... or they become legend.

The only advice I can give to aspiring writers is don't do it unless you're willing to give your whole life to it. Red wine and garlic also helps.

Everybody has a gun in their car in Detroit.

I don't see gender as the most significant fact of human existence.

I enjoy about 1 out of 100 movies, it's about the same proportion to books published that I care to read.

I'm actually forced to write about Michigan because as a native of that state it's the place I know best.

I'm not rational enough to be a good journalist.

So when I made some money, I didn't have any idea how one handled such a situation because no one in our family ever had any money.