If you call it a romance, it will never be reviewed by the 'New York Times' or any other respectable literary venue. And that's okay. I can live with that.

I have no objection to well-written romance, but I'd read enough of it to know that that's not what I had written. I also knew that if it was sold as romance I'd never be reviewed by the 'New York Times' or any other literarily respectable newspaper - which is basically true, although the 'Washington Post' did get round to me eventually.

When' Voyager', the third book of the series, hit the 'New York Times' bestseller list, they very honorably redesigned the covers and started calling them fiction.

You can never have enough garlic. With enough garlic, you can eat The New York Times.

I'm never surprised by the insensitivity of 'The New York Times' editorial board.

I never set out to do this - getting to No. 1 in the 'New York Times' bestseller list wasn't even a pipedream.