Beauty, my first girlfriend said to me, is that inner quality often associated with great amounts of leisure time.

I'll tell you the secret. When you begin with a character, you want to begin by creating a villain.

I claimed myself and remade my life.

I think I would have died if there hadn't been the women's movement. It gave me a vision that I could do something different, and it gave me an understanding that I wasn't a monster, or sport, or a betrayer of my family.

she got a reputation for an easy smile and a sharp tongue, and using one to balance the other, she seemed friendly but distant

I told her, Don't touch me that way. Don't come at me with that sour-cream smile. Come at me as if I were worth your life - the life we make together. Take me like a turtle whose shell must be cracked, whose heart is ice, who needs your heat. Love me like a warrior, sweat up to your earlobes and all your hope between your teeth. Love me so I know I am at least as important as anything you have ever wanted.

Fiction is a piece of truth that turns lies to meaning.