Young people never believe in the possibility of their own deaths. That's one reason old men can send them to war.

biography is essentially a collaborative art, the latest biographer collaborating with all those who wrote earlier.

Despite all the cynical things writers have said about writing for money, the truth is we write for love. That is why it is so easy to exploit us.

Denounce useless guilt. Don’t make a cult of suffering. Live in the now(or at least the soon). Always do the things you fear most. Courage is an acquired taste like caviar. Trust all joy. If the evil eye fixes you in its gaze, look elsewhere. Get ready to be 87.

It is the nature of those books we call classics to wait patiently on the shelf for us to grow into them.

fame is merely the fact of being misunderstood by millions of people.

Generations of women have sacrificed their lives to become their mothers. But we do not have that luxury any more. The world has changed too much to let us have the lives our mothers had. And we can no longer afford the guilt we feel at not being our mothers. We cannot afford any guilt that pulls us back to the past. We have to grow up, whether we want to or not. We have to stop blaming men and mothers and seize every second of our lives with passion. We can no longer afford to waste our creativity. We cannot afford spiritual laziness.