I think people feel for a long time that they ought to know how to write a novel in two drafts.

I heard a white writer say, 'Oh, I'd never put black people in my writing, I'm afraid I would offend someone by doing it wrong.' I can't bear that!

We still have so many cultures in which people are imprisoned and whipped and killed for writing what they think.

Somehow we have to detach from feeling as though money is a quick and easy standard by which we can gauge how well we're doing.

Little children are all writers.

There's the belief that we can't be smart enough to write. And certainly censorship of women, too.

When an editor first explained to me the difference between direct and indirect writing, I just thought it was a stylistic choice.