“When someone is mean to me, I just make them a victim in my next book.”

“Just because someone tried to make you into a victim didn’t mean that’s what you had to be.”

“When someone tells me "no," it doesn't mean I can't do it, it simply means I can't do it with them.”

“What does it mean that we find victims who suffer with dignity more attractive than victims who don’t? What does it mean that we don’t mind it when perpetrators, torn apart by their own experiences, weep openly—but we are rendered uncomfortable when victims do the same? I don’t mean that each and every person has this experience: many of us feel like weeping when we see the carnage created by a suicide bombing and the grieving and shocked faces of the survivors. I mean instead that in all I have read, I detect a strong cultural bias toward aversion when confronted with victims who act as if they have suffered.[…]“Fragile, powerless, and helpless victims make us uncomfortable, evoke complicated responses in us, and make it hard for us to empathize with the humiliation they underwent.[…]one claim I make in different ways in the book—and very explicitly in chapter 3—is that to be really credible, a victim has to appear to have mastered his or her suffering.”

“What really annoys me are the ones who write to say, I am doing your book for my final examinations and could you please tell me what the meaning of it is. I find it just so staggering--that you're supposed to explain the meaning of your book to some total stranger! If I knew what the meanings of my books were, I wouldn't have bothered to write them.”

“My favorite book is my next one. I’m always hoping to make my next book my best one.”