If I told you about all the stories I don't tell, I would be violating the very boundaries I set for myself.

Women writers have been told, forever, that our stories were not valuable. Not as valuable as men's stories about wars, business, power.

I believe every one of us possesses a fundamental right to tell our own story.

I think of myself as a realistic writer, not a creator of soap opera or melodrama.

It troubles me that people speak about writing for money as ugly and distasteful.

The vehemence with which certain critics have chosen not simply to criticize what I've written, but to challenge my writing this story at all, speaks of what the book is about: fear of disapproval.