“Elizabeth Zott had been a character — a minor character — in a book that I started and shelved. But she came back to me one day. And this is, seriously, like ten years later. I'd had a really, really bad day at work. I'd endured some, what I would call, average sexism. I'd been in a meeting, and somebody basically took credit for all of my ideas ... after I had just presented them. ... I went back to my desk and I felt like Elizabeth Zott was sitting there. And I wrote the first chapter of Lessons in Chemistry — that day in my office.”