A biography for Susan Minothasn’t been written yet.
“I went to graduate school with zero expectation. I kind of backed into it. I wanted to go back to school because I felt gaps in my literary background. I studied mostly twentieth-century English literature in college, so I thought, 'Maybe I'll go back for my writing.'”
“Between children and parents, there is a difficulty of seeing each other simply as people.”
“The teenager's room is her cave. It is here she can meet herself, undistracted by the new hassles life is making for her. Here, she can reflect.”
“Change and renewal are themes in life, aren't they? We keep growing throughout life.”
“Preserving that privacy between a writer and the work is important. You have to shut out all those voices that have reacted to your work.”
“People can have a variety of concerns at the same time. Even those undergoing grave or traumatic experiences will acknowledge the need for lightness or even entertainment.”
“There are aspects of love that I once undervalued. Kindness. Having a sort of honor when love is on the table.”
“Most fiction comes from your experience.”
“Recklessness is par for the course when you're 25.”
“When I was in my teens and twenties, I could see friends expressing how radical they were, and I envied them, the way they lived, the way they dressed. Maybe there is a part of me that is reserved, even in rebellion.”
“Success did change me. You don't want it to, but it does.”
“I don't consider the first-world concerns any less important than the third-world ones.”
“Desire suppressed finds its way into other more surreal settings, into dreams.”
“The idea that there is a family somewhere who functions is an odd concept.”
“So many bad things happen in this world because people don't know how to express things.”
“Illness can make us behave in the most surprising ways.”
“Painting keeps me occupied in those moments when travel can be aimless and even disorienting. Mainly it is a way to register at least some of the new impressions of a foreign place, when its thrilling barrage can sometimes overwhelm you.”
“I love 'Anna Karenina.' It's in the top five books on my list. Tolstoy is unsurpassed in combining the grand with the trivial, that is, the small details which make up life.”