For she was of that generation who, having found nothing in religion, had formed themselves through literature.

Envy has always hidden behind moral indignation.

I'm always astounded at the way we automatically look at what divides and separates us. We never look at what people have in common.

There are many feminists who work in the media, and they think that feminism is very important. It is in their own lives, but mostly feminism has had an impact among privileged women in the advanced Western countries. For the most part, it hasn't begun to touch the lives of poor and working women in the Third World, and that distresses me.

[Some people think] that storytelling is telling jokes. So they have to be discouraged! Then others think that storytelling-is like an encounter group . . .

You have to give up a great deal of life, your personal life, to be a writer.

Our society is dependent on some precarious mechanisms, and they are very dicey. They can easily collapse.