We teach girls shame; close your legs, cover yourself, we make them feel as though by being born female they're already guilty of something.

Stories matter. Many stories matter.

You can't write a script in your mind and then force yourself to follow it. You have to let yourself be.

I would come, many years later, to understand why To Kill A Mockingbird is considered an important novel, but when I first read it at 11, I was simply absorbed by the way it evoked the mysteries of childhood, of treasures discovered in trees, and games played with an exotic summer friend.

And it's wrong of you to think that love leaves room for nothing else. It's possible to love something and still condescend to it.

How easy it was to lie to strangers, to create with strangers the versions of our lives we imagined.

I don't believe that art and politics or social issues must be separated. In writing about marriage, for example, money can be a big factor, and money is linked to earning, and earning is influenced by politics.