I think professionalism is important, and professionalism means you get paid.

There is still the feeling that women's writing is a lesser class of writing, that what goes on in the nursery or the bedroom is not as important as what goes on in the battlefield, that what women know about is a less category of knowledge.

certain very old people reach an age where every funeral becomes some sort of insane confirmation of strength, rather than of vulnerability, as it is when we are in our thirties or forties and our friends die.

biography is essentially a collaborative art, the latest biographer collaborating with all those who wrote earlier.

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

what storyteller is adequate to her story? The story carries us along, bottles on the tide, each with our secret mesage and the fervent hope that it does not turn out to be blank.

Every time women make tremendous strides, the right wing gets terrified and creates laws making it hard to get an abortion or birth control.