Alice McDermott

A perfect poem you can't pin down and say, 'This is exactly what it meant to me.' It's not a self-help manual.

I'm not usually drawn to memoir - many run the risk of self-aggrandizement or score-settling.

Loss is inevitable - you have to be blind or naive to think otherwise.

I'm the world's worst after-dinner speaker. I need pictures to respond to. I was the voice of the lottery balls once and got the sack.

Recently, I was in Bernalda, my dad's ancestral home town in Italy. He has just refurbished a palazzo and turned it into a hotel, so we had my sister's wedding there. It was beautiful.

Well, I actually wrote her a letter a couple of days ago congratulating her. The tone I tried to convey in the letter is, look, you are a part of a great American historical process.