I don't cook. My mother didn't cook. My daughter doesn't cook.

I am not sure if love is a salve or just a deeper kind of wound.

You are always naked when you start writing; you are always as if you had never written anything before; you are always a beginner. Shakespeare wrote without knowing he would become Shakespeare

It is a sad paradox that when male authors impersonate women ... they are said to be dealing with 'cosmic, major concerns' - but when we impersonate ourselves we are said to be writing 'women's fiction' or 'women's poetry.

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

I think a lot of people, when they read about a woman who acknowledges her sexuality and her feelings, get really scared. They say they want to be fearless, but in reality they're terrified. If they acknowledge their deepest feelings, they might have to change their lives.

I tried to keep myself away from him by using con words like "fidelity" and "adultery", by telling myself that he would interfere with my work, that I had him I'd be too happy to write. I tried to tell myself I was hurting Bennett, hurting myself, making a spectacle of myself. I was. But nothing helped. I was possessed. The minute he walked into a room and smiled at me, I was a goner.