Most sex doesn't really bring people together. You have to reach a certain level of connection, I think, and that's pretty rare.

My generation was not only maligned in book reviews and attacked in graduate school but we lived to see our adored and adorable daughters wonder why feminism had become a dirty word.

I didn't believe in systems. Everything human was imperfect and ultimately absurd. What did I believe in then? In humor. In laughing at systems, at people, at one's self. In laughing even at one's need to laugh all the time. In seeing life as contradictory, many-sided, various, funny, tragic, and with moments of outrageous beauty. In seeing life as a fruitcake, including delicious plums and bad peanuts, but meant to be devoured hungrily all the same because you couldn't feast on the plums without also sometimes being poisoned by the peanuts.

A poem (surely someone has said this before) is a one-night stand, a short story a love affair, and a novel a marriage.

Perhaps every generation thinks of itself as a lost generation and perhaps every generation is right.

Writing is one of the few professions left where you take all the responsibility for what you do. It's really dangerous and ultimately destroys you as a writer if you start thinking about responses to your work or what your audience needs.

My generation had Doris Day as a role model, then Gloria Steinem--then Princess Diana. We are the most confused generation.