It's true that I had a bucolic, truly peaceful childhood, growing up in a house next to our family's orchard. We had a lot of books and art, but no electricity until I was eight years old. Since then, I have seen a lot of inner-city life, though.

After clearing the land, planting the orchard, building the house and barn, and surviving the Great Depression, our father died suddenly one winter night when we were small, leaving us to learn about loss before we even knew its name.

Most people I know don't even realize I'm an award-winning author, but I have gotten many opportunities to travel to places I'd never have visited otherwise.

Shakespeare had found language for the agony of living with one's own mistakes. There were words for finding yourself isolated with your failures. Phrases for discovering that you were wrong, all, all wrong, wrong, wrong.

There are certain families who absolutely incorporate their nanny as part of the family, and there are other people, and there are codes for this, when they call in, they say, 'I am really not looking for a friend.' It is clear they will not be members of the family.

When my family moved to Karachi, I just knew the date and month of my birth and not the exact year. That is why my age was erroneously recorded in the under-14 trials.

I don't like the outside world to intrude when I'm making a film. I like to either see my family or work, but I don't like to go out.

So much of my sense of who I am is tied to mothering. When they left home, I fell into a huge, empty, black hole. Your children are grown and your career has slowed down - all the stuff that took up so much attention is gone, and you're left with expansive time and space.