Take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame.

My generation of young female writers discovered that we could dictate the form and content of our own fiction.

There's another part of getting older that's just wonderful. Which is you see the way the stories turn out with peoples' lives.

A baby's a full time job for three adults. Nobody tells you that when you're pregnant, or you'd probably jump off a bridge. Nobody tells you how all-consuming it is to be a mother-how reading goes out the window and thinking too.

The sexuality doesn't end. It really doesn't. You're sexual your whole life, if you're a sexual person.

Any system was a straightjacket if you insisted on adhering to it so totally and humorlessly.

The absolute bedrock of our independence is having control over our own bodies. You cannot be independent if the government or someone else says whether or not you can use birth control. Unless you're in charge of your body, you're not in charge of anything. I think that's really the bottom line of feminism.