SOME years ago, when I was teaching a graduate seminar in fiction at Columbia University, a well-known male novelist visited my class to speak on his development as a writer. In discussing his formative years, he didn't realize it but he seriously endangered his life by remarking that women writers are luckier than those of his sex because they usually spend so much time as children around their mothers and their mothers' friends in the kitchen.

What did he say that for?

This expression came to me while coming up with creative ways to market my then-new book, and has since become one of my favorite quotes. It's beautiful--if I say so myself--and its effectiveness will forever ring true. Endlessly will I find new ways to express it.