She was thirty-nine. No, she did not envy her eighteen-year- old self at all. But she did envy, envied every day more bitterly, that young girl's genuine independence, largeness, scope, and courage.

The world is only tolerable because of the empty places in it...when the world's filled up, we'll have to get hold of a star. Any star. Venus, or Mars. Get hold of it and leave it empty. Man needs an empty space somewhere for his spirit to rest in.

I wasn't an active feminist in the '60s, never have been.

Anna, there's something very arrogant about insisting on the right to be right.

I'm not one of those writers that sits worrying about posthumous fame.

A woman without a man cannot meet a man, any man, of any age, without thinking, even if it's for a half-second, 'Perhaps this is THE man.

The critics slap labels on you and then expect you to talk inside their terms.