I write and I read, and I write and read my way into and out of ideas and life. And that's what we do. That's what storytellers do.
I want to make words out of life. That's bigger than me. That's as big a creative force as - bigger than, for me, even having children. That felt more accidental - wonderful, but accidental.
I did try to write fiction. I wrote 10 novels. And they were all just awful.
Being a white southern African who saw the transition from Rhodesia to Zimbabwe, the sense of being an outsider was absolutely instilled in my limbic system.
Being a writer but also having been raised the way I was, I tend to turn to books for answers.
Marriage is the trickiest and most basic contract that we have.
The belief that we can be done with our past is a myth.
Yes, as an oppressed people, American Indians have this epic burden, but first and foremost, they're human: sometimes a mess, sometimes funny or sad, at times very wise, and other times not wise at all - a lot like me.
That's the advantage of being a writer: No matter what happens, as long as you survive it, it goes into the work.
I'm unconventional and eccentric and talk things out, and it seemed that the person I married - maybe in reaction - got quieter and more conventional over time. It felt as if we were putting each other in a straitjacket.
There are real consequences when women speak out. It's really dangerous, and it takes real courage. We are still speaking out against a white male majority. Forget the glass ceiling. We haven't even broken the glass floor!
Everyone says marriage is hard work, but they don't tell you that actually being yourself and respecting yourself is hard work.
I'm a working writer; this is my job. So it matters to me that it's good. I sweat over every word. I don't just vomit this stuff up. It's agony. The only thing that comes close is childbirth, except it's like being in labor for eighteen months.
You can have an intense connection to someone without being a good, lifelong mate for him. Love is complicated and difficult that way.
I look around and pay attention to what around me is not being talked about, and then I talk about it with as much humour and honesty as I can. All my books have been that way.
For me, writing is really an agony. I feel as if I have a huge, luminous idea that has the potential to be really profound, and then when I set it down on paper, I find the power of the idea has been hugely weakened in the process of transmission.
The only process that comes close to the process of writing a whole book, in my experience, is childbirth. There is this moment when you think you can't possibly labour for another moment, and that, paradoxically, is when you have to push hardest.
In the West, it was believed that attitude and ambition saved you. In Africa, we had learned that no one was immune to capricious tragedy.
Retaining culture takes effort and persistence and discipline. It's a commitment, not a flag. You can't just pull it out and wave it about when it's convenient.
In Africa, we filled up all available time busily doing not much, and then we wasted the rest.
