I've come, even as a feminist, to dread the phrase 'female friendship,' because it tends to signal overdetermined relationships.

Literary novelists who have a strong handle on plot are often characterized as good vacation reads because they manage to transport you elsewhere, away from the petty facts of ordinary life.

The children of the 1980s were the last before a lot of things changed. We were the last generation not to have cell phones, not to have video games, not to have parents who worried if we strayed from the yard.

I tend to judge a piece of criticism by how smart I find the argument. This, I know,, is not how everyone does it.

I like debate and argument, so I'm usually all right with disagreement, and I'm even all right if the critic doesn't come to a clear thumbs up or thumbs down. But I need the disagreement to have some kind of line I can follow on the map. I like following an interesting mind along it.

Bad criticism recites rote arguments. The shame of rote arguments isn't just that they're cliches, though they are, but that they tend to hide from us why a critic is actually thinking what they're thinking.