I did not intend to be a writer. I first wanted to be a lawyer, like my father. Then I got bit by the bug of philosophy and wanted to be a philosophy professor. I went to graduate school and quickly discovered it was impossible for a woman in those days - this was the early fifties - to be a philosopher, so I gave that up.

The movement for women's liberation was about an emotional transformation, an explosion, a feeling all over the country that things must be different, and ideas about how they should be. I think fiction can capture that kind of thing better than other genres because in fiction you can explore the feelings of your characters - the before and the after.

In my books, my idea is always to explore social context and social forces.

Being alone for a woman is probably much more scary than for a man. I'm all for getting over our fears by facing them head-on.

I don't really think myself that sex work is necessarily more demeaning than other kinds of demeaning work.

Everything is connected. There is no such thing as an island, especially in our world, global village, the whole thing. Pollution from way across the ocean circulates in the air.

My mirror image always had to be interpreted. And for that I sought my reflection in someone else's eyes.