The most important thing for a writer is to be locked in a study.

If, every day, I dare to remember that I am here on loan, that this house, this hillside, these minutes are all leased to me, not given, I will never despair.

Sex is God's joke on the human race ... if we didn't have sex to make us ridiculous, She would have had to think up something else instead.

The greatest feminists have also been the greatest lovers. I'm thinking not only of Mary Wollstonecraft and her daughter Mary Shelley, but of Anais Nin, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and of course Sappho. You cannot divide creative juices from human juices. And as long as juicy women are equated with bad women, we will err on the side of being bad.

Murky language means someone wants to pick your pocket.

Really true intimacy is rare and it depends on other things besides sex.

we all carry the Houses of our Youth inside, and our Parents, too, grown small enough to fit within our Hearts.