I was just, like, not at all the office type; I was the artist type.

I definitely do see language serving its users, and when it no longer serves them we need to look for new words.

For things to have value in man's world, they are given the role of commodities. Among man's oldest and most constant commodity is woman.

I wanted everything. What could you not want when you are brown and Indian-looking in a society in which the white aesthetic is praised as acceptable?

As time has gone on and we're at the end of the 20th century and major publishing is a big business, yes, of course we're going to get a lot of plain, mediocre trash. There are a lot of writers who get huge advances for books that don't go anywhere and they have to burn them somewhere or throw them away. I always think about all the poor trees that have been sacrificed.

It is an absolute impossibility in this society to reversely sexually objectify heterosexual men, just as it is impossible for a poor person of color to be a racist. Such extreme prejudice must be accompanied by the power of society's approval and legislation. While women and poor people of color may become intolerant, personally abusive, even hateful, they do not have enough power to be racist or sexist.

Paris, true to its promise, had been a place of civilized indecencies, or uncivil decencies.