You must find the right voice (or voices) for the timbre that can convince a reader to give himself up to you.

the only people worth writing about are those about whom the last word cannot be said.

Nothing quite has reality for me till I write it all down--revising and embellishing as I go. I'm always waiting for things to be over so I can get home and commit them to paper.

I convinced myself that sadness and compromise were the ways of the world.

You must have a certain amount of maturity to be a poet. Seldom do sixteen-year-olds know themselves well enough.

As a past president of the Writers Guild, I think women shouldn't write for free. Maybe you have to do it for a time, to make a reputation, but I think the idea of giving your work away is the beginning of authors not being able to make a living.

writers do not choose their subjects; their subjects choose them.