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In my first book, 'A Return to Love', I wrote about things in the outer world that need to change - how we need to ameliorate deep poverty, heal the earth, end war.

In course of time my first novel appeared. It was a love story.

It is one of the paradoxes of American literature that our writers are forever looking back with love and nostalgia at lives they couldn't wait to leave.

When I first came to the United States in 1956 I fell in love with things - mainly the vitality and the freedoms.

Let me say that I absolutely loved writing 'A Common Life,' because it was a book about love.

I felt that, in some ways, my novels lacked heart because of the distance between me and the subject matter. But no one wants to read a book based on good health, a happy upbringing, a long marriage.

Love is like war: easy to begin but very hard to stop.

I love books where you feel you're having a romance with the writer.

I love my life, my family and my friends, and I'm drawn to 'relationship' novels because of their affirming focus on the power of love to heal wounds and transform lives.

My books are love stories at core, really. But I am interested in manifestations of love beyond the traditional romantic notion. In fact, I seem not particularly inclined to write romantic love as a narrative motive or as an easy source of happiness for my characters.