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If there's ever a woman who's smart, funny, or witty, people are afraid of that, so they don't write that. They only write parts for women where they let everything be steamrolled over them, where they let people wipe their feet all over them.

I try to write parts for women that are as complicated and interesting as women actually are.

I try to write about real women, real people - in other words flawed characters.

I don't write women who are weak or simpering.

Women are never the protagonists; we're always reactionary against everything that's done to us. I like people who write for women that have got a bit more about them.

When I was in graduate school, I had a teacher who said to me, 'Women writers should marry somebody who thinks writing is cute. Because if they really realised what writing was, they would run a mile.'

I like writing flawed women, and being one, it's something I feel I can write with some veracity and authority.

I couldn't love a woman who inspired me to be totally disinterested. If I fell in love with a woman for an artistic reason, or from the point of view of my work, I think it would rob her of something.

So I constantly play women who are damaged and out of touch, who are seeking without knowing, or knowing without the skills to transform their lives. But then, that's really the fate of many women today.

If you can't annoy somebody, there's little point in writing.