You cannot be really first-rate at your work if your work is all you are.

I remember adolescence, the years of having the impulse control of a mousetrap, of being as private as a safe-deposit box.

But never fear, gentlemen; castration was really not the point of feminism, and we women are too busy eviscerating one another to take you on.

Speech is the voice of the heart.

I do a lot of mental work before I ever start writing.

Since the age of five I had been one of those people who was an indefatigable reader, more inclined to go off by myself with a book than do any of the dozens of things that children usually do to amuse themselves. I never aged out of it.

Adolescence is a tough time for parent and child alike. It is a time between: between childhood and maturity, between parental protection and personal responsibility, between life stage- managed by grown-ups and life privately held.