Art isn't anecdote. It's the consciousness we bring to bear in our lives.

Men's stories are seen as universal, women's as particular. What women are up against is the battle to not be marginalized.

And if you're gonna be a writer, you just truly have to be a writer. You have to throw yourself into it and deal with the negative consequences of that. And there are negative consequences. I mean, there are. But, it's also true that you wouldn't be interviewing me right now if I had worked at the post office. You wouldn't. I would be still writing, but I wouldn't have gotten as far as I've gotten, because I wouldn't have had the time.

I could go back in the direction I had come from, or I could go forward in the direction I intended to go.

I am an advocate of honesty and openness, and I think deceit is a dangerous seed to plant and let grow in relationships.

There's no way to know what makes one thing happen and not another. What leads to what. What destroys what. What causes what to flourish or die or take another course.

How wild it was, to let it be.