I had to discover very quickly that class origins cannot be erased, regardless of whether we climb up or down the sociocultural ladder.

I didn't choose anonymity.Instead, I chose absence.

As a girl - twelve, thirteen years old - I was absolutely certain that a good book had to have a man as its hero, and that depressed me.

We lie in order to tolerate our existence and, most of all, we lie to ourselves.

Writing for me is a dragnet that carries everything away with it: expressions and figures of speech, postures, feelings, thoughts, troubles. In short, the lives of others.

Is it possible that even happy moments of pleasure never stand up to a rigorous examination? Possible.

Writers, because they write, are condemned never to be readers of their own stories...The memory of first putting a story into words will always prevent writers from reading their work as an ordinary reader would.