Women are obviously much more discriminated against than men in many ways.

I don't write about things that I have the answers to or things that are very close to home. It just wouldn't be any adventure. It wouldn't have any vitality.

If you could have a book called My Favorite Six Stories, I don't think I'd have trouble doing that.

Nobody can assume that, to a writer, everything is off-limits.

I've always really liked the idea of an artist name, like a cover-up, even though in my music I'm being very personal in the stuff that I write about.

I believe the American people spoke loud and clear to the Bush Administration in yesterday's election that they disapprove of the current direction in the war in Iraq. As a result, the President wasted no time in dumping Secretary Rumsfeld.

You see, in my view a writer is a writer not because she writes well and easily, because she has amazing talent, because everything she does is golden. In my view a writer is a writer because even when there is no hope, even when nothing you do shows any sign of promise, you keep writing anyway.

Doing what we can to repair the world was instilled in me from an early age. I will never forget my siblings and me knitting squares for blankets to be sent to the troops during World War II. This was an inspiration from my mother.