All good fortune is a gift of the gods, and you don't win the favor of the ancient gods by being good, but by being bold.

A complete woman is probably not a very admirable creature. She is manipulative, uses other people to get her own way, and works within whatever system she is in.

You never know what you will learn till you start writing. Then you discover truths you never knew existed.

To remain pure, a novel has to cast a moral puzzle. Anything else is mere negotiation.

You can never betray the people who are dead, so you go on being a public Jew; the dead can't answer slurs, but I'm here. I would love to think that Jesus wants me for a sunbeam, but he doesn't.

The lessons taught in great books are misleading. The commerce in life is rarely so simple and never so just.

It will be a pity if women in the more conventional mould are to be phased out, for there will never be anyone to go home to.