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If I am in a beautiful place, but I don't like the people, I am miserable.

I come from Main Street, from a small town that's really depressed.

I moved to a city and joined a sort of fast crowd. A lot of people who grew up in the city sort of aren't aware of manners and other ways of life and 'common decency.'

People are so busy anyway they don't see you or recognise you in the street.

When I go to Africa and spend more time there with people who are the least of the least, those in desperate situations, I am broken by it. But I also find people with so much more joy and freedom living with nothing than I see walking down the streets of my own community here in Tennessee.

When I first moved here, I almost felt like I was obligated to hate L.A. as a New Yorker. I moved way too fast for this city. I walked everywhere, and I was lonely, too. It was a really hard time not knowing anybody, and you don't run into people the way you do in New York. You can go a week without seeing anyone.

It's difficult to feel that people are looking at you in the street. I don't like the fuss.

I know what it's like to be from an incredibly small town and the oppressiveness of it and the desire to get out. But I didn't realize that readers in Seattle, New York, and San Francisco might not get that so instinctively.

Things come in waves, and I'm always more interested in places like, for instance, Chicago, where people don't follow fashion. They're not galloping past your window on the way to the latest anything. They're living their lives. You do a play, they come and see it and say, 'That's nice', and then they go home.

I think there are people who really love the comfort of their small town, and there are people who feel stuck by it.