We write poems / as leaves give oxygen - / so we can breathe.

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.

It's easier to write about pain than about joy. Joy is wordless.

A poem (surely someone has said this before) is a one-night stand, a short story a love affair, and a novel a marriage.

I hope we don't have to keep going back over the same territory and winning the same rights over and over again. The battle for birth control. The battle for abortion. The parity of women's health. It's very depressing to think that you win these rights, but then you have to win them again, and again, and again, and fight the same battles over and over.

My generation had Doris Day as a role model, then Gloria Steinem--then Princess Diana. We are the most confused generation.

If you imagine the world listening, you'll never write a line. That's why privacy is so important. You should write first drafts as if they will never be shown to anyone.