The kind of power mothers have is enormous.

At the best of times, spring hurts depressives.

For most of human history, 'literature,' both fiction and poetry, has been narrated, not written — heard, not read. So fairy tales, folk tales, stories from the oral tradition, are all of them the most vital connection we have with the imaginations of the ordinary men and women whose labor created our world.

Language is power, life and the instrument of culture, the instrument of domination and liberation.

I see her as a series of marvellous shapes formed at random in the kaleidoscope of desire.

There is a striking resemblance between the act of love and the ministrations of a torturer.

I don't really think that writers, even great writers, are prophets, or sages, or Messiah-like figures; writing is a lonely, sedentary occupation and a touch of megalomania can be comforting around five on a November afternoon when you haven't seen anybody all day.