Why do people think that we’re degraded when we’re examining positions of degradation, or examining the cycle of our own degradation?

Why does everybody think that women are debasing themselves when we expose the conditions of our debasement?

I think what makes you feel so connected with certain writers isn't a matter of autobiographical detail, but that the emotions are real. The way some writers are able to channel themselves through the form.

Stalinism - or communism - is the only ideology Americans know how to demonise... no one knows what it is, it's just a synonym for the Empire of Evil.

No one...can live in this heightened state of reflective receptivity forever. Because this empathy's involuntary, there's terror here. Loss of control, a seepage. Becoming someone else or worse: becoming nothing but the vibratory field between two people.

I think the sheer fact of women talking, being, paradoxical, inexplicable, flip, self-destructiv e but above all else public is the most revolutionary thing in the world.

I think writers always want to be taken seriously as writers, but it's not always possible. There's a difference between persistence and banging your head against the same wall a hundred times. Sometimes it's better to look away from the wall and see what else might be available that's easier.