Men have always detested women's gossip because they suspect the truth: their measurements are being taken and compared.

Once I worshipped Keats for dying young. Now I think it's braver to die old.

In a way women are fleshier because of estrogen. It's hard for us to lose weight because when we get super skinny we don't ovulate. Women in camps during the Holocaust didn't menstruate and didn't ovulate. They were starving; they were terrified. Why emulate that condition? It's nonsensical to me.

You must have a certain amount of maturity to be a poet. Seldom do sixteen-year-olds know themselves well enough.

Young people never believe in the possibility of their own deaths. That's one reason old men can send them to war.

I think that the joy of writing a novel is the self-exploratio n that emerges and also that wonderful feeling of playing God with the characters. When I sit down at my writing desk, time seems to vanish. ... I think the most important thing for a writer is to be locked in a study.

You can't be creative and still be a good girl.