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.

We define ourselves as intelligent. That's odd, because we're doing the definition - We're creating our own definition and saying, 'We are intelligent!'

Although I write to entertain, and try to keep my work free of didacticism, I do have a rather passionate belief in our need to be connected to - and to learn from - history.

If every time you engage in a sex act, you go into a confession box, you will never accept your own sexuality.