Meg Wolitzer

I think listening to music from your youth is as powerful as a scent passed beneath your nose.

I really love Scrabble. I played it with my mother growing up. We took it everywhere with us. We didn't know then about the two letter words. Who knew that AA, or more controversially, ZA, or QI were words? We were a games family generally.

I've always been drawn to writing for young readers. The books that I read growing up remain in my mind very strongly.

My being a writer and playing Scrabble are connected. If I have a good writing day, I'll take a break and play online Scrabble. My favorite word as a child was 'carrion,' before I knew what it meant. I later created crossword puzzles, which was a lot about puns, and how words would create these strange, strange things.

Some people are uncomfortable saying what they feel.

It's gratifying to be taken seriously, always.

I am a novelist through and through.

When you're writing, it's so absorbing. It's like a drop cloth goes over you, and the world outside falls away, but you do have a miniature version of the world, your own world, that you actually have some control over. I love to work.

We all would love the idea of people getting what's coming to them in books and in life, but sometimes the trajectory is a little more complicated than that.

When I was in junior high school, friends and I were in a consciousness-raising group, a term that now seems quaint like a butter churn, but it was very powerful. It was a really wonderful experience.

Charlotte's Web,' which I read sitting on my mother's lap, was the most emotional experience: that was when I made the leap from seeing how to untangle words to realizing how books both contain and convey strong feelings.

I'm really interested in women of different generations... I think there is no one female experience.