the unconscious of an artist is her greatest treasure. It is what transmutes the dross of autobiography into the gold of myth.

I write lustily and humorously. It isn't calculated; it's the way I think. I've invented a writing style that expresses who I am.

Do you want me to tell you something really subversive? Love is everything it's cracked up to be. That's why people are so cynical about it. It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more.

Feminism is teaching. I've gotten a lot of pleasure pushing younger writers that I've met and worked with.

The greatest feminists have also been the greatest lovers. I'm thinking not only of Mary Wollstonecraft and her daughter Mary Shelley, but of Anais Nin, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and of course Sappho. You cannot divide creative juices from human juices. And as long as juicy women are equated with bad women, we will err on the side of being bad.

She was mine and not-mine all at once. She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen and the most terrifying.

At certain historic moments, grandparents took on childrearing responsibilities. In many cultures, they still do. Chinese grandparents who are able to retire at 55 are seen all over Beijing bouncing grandbabies. In the United States, we can't afford to retire at 55.