If there's anything the world disdains more than uppity young women, it's uppity old women. Dying young has always been a woman's best career move.

I have ne'er been in a chamber with a lawyer when I did not wish either to scream with desperation or else fall into the deepest of sleeps, e'en when the matter concern'd my own future most profoundly.

We were not human beings going through spiritual experiences; we were spiritual beings going through human experiences, in order to grow.

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

Never joke with the press. Irony does not translate into newsprint.

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.

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.