MIRANDA JULY

When I was very little, I probably wanted to be more normal. I probably wanted the Laura Ashley bedroom, and instead I got thrift-store everything.

My job is to have new ideas and take risks every day, so I'm always looking forward to the next thing being done or making the next thing that I haven't yet gotten to. That's sort of the constant in my life.

When I write, I wear earplugs. I don't want to be self-conscious. I don't want to be thinking about the fact that I'm thinking about it. I just want to be in it. It's one element of hypnosis.

I'm not a cinephile. My films don't reference films. I'm more interested in rhythm and feeling.

I spend a lot of time obsessing about getting a dignified eight hours' sleep.

We humans are here because nothing can be perfect. There always have to be some living things that are unsatisfied, itchy, trying too hard. If it was all just animals and rocks and lettuce, the gods wouldn't feel like they had enough to do.

An erratum is a correction inserted into a book after publication. It's a nice thing to collect because you can't go after them, you just come upon them. In 25 years I've only found about 12.

I didn't have any vices before the Internet. There are a lot of cracks in the day, moments where you don't know what to do next, so you have a little hole where you look at your phone. You want something that will mean you're not alone in that moment.

I actually don't have a great surplus of ideas. Some evolve very slowly, over many years, but I sort of trust that all of the interesting ones will become something that I eventually end up doing.

I eat an egg every morning, and when I'm done, I almost always have the thought: 'There. Now even if I'm captured and starved, I'll be able to live off the protein of that egg for a while.'

My earliest memory is aged three, seeing sunlight on water and feeling it was really magical.

I feel like my only safety is in being totally true to myself.

I'm often drawn in by a description of a woman thinking something familiar that's never been articulated before, as in Diane Cook's 'Somebody's Baby' or Nina Berberova's 'The Tattered Cloak.'

There's no law against asking strangers about their lives and feelings, although sometimes it really feels like there is.

Each couple's version of intimacy is so fascinating to me. A friend will tell me about her marriage, and I'll think, 'Yikes, they have horrible communication! They're going to get divorced!' And then I'll hear about them at another time and think, 'Wow, they love each other so much!'

I'm quite a cerebral person. Often I feel quite stuck in that.

I know I'm going to lose a lot of readers over this, and I don't care: 'Garfield' is overrated. I have always felt this, even as a child. That dumb man and his dumb, mean cat have gotten more of our attention than they deserve.

I think this is how life is. It's not a linear march through time; you revolve around the same old things as you age and acquire experiences.

I have female friends who work in all different mediums who I speak to at least once a week. It helps me so much to know that I'm not alone. I think that's the bare minimum you need to sustain yourself - some sort of context of other women making things.

I prefer a great novel, but many novels come with a bunch of novel-y writerliness that feels sort of macho to me, so I do end up reading lots of shorter things.

Long before I started to write in earnest, Lorrie Moore taught me you could have a woman narrator who was funny and complex and even wrongheaded. She opened up a lot of space that me and a million other women rushed into.

The moment I feel pressure to read a book, I instinctively rebel against it - which is probably one reason I didn't last long in college.

I am a big fan of work in any medium that can take on death - being dead, being a soul - in a new way.

I've always had a dog phobia.

I just happen to be from the generation that, like a lot of my older friends, started out writing letters.