I was four when I announced my ambition to write, eight when I began publishing such claims.

I write essays to clear my mind. I write fiction to open my heart.

As a writer, one is obliged to release her words, to let them live in the world on their own.

I've written fiction for as long as I can remember; it's always been my preferred form of play.

I wrote fiction during my entire childhood, from age 4 to 18, and started writing plays when I went to Yale and Oxford.

That's what makes writer's block so painful. You think the well has run dry, maybe somewhere in the heavens the tap has been turned off. That's beyond frightening.