Writing is one of the few professions left where you take all the responsibility for what you do. It's really dangerous and ultimately destroys you as a writer if you start thinking about responses to your work or what your audience needs.

We all parent the best we can. Being human, we're ambivalent. We want perfection for our babies, but we also need sleep.

I write lustily and humorously. It isn't calculated; it's the way I think. I've invented a writing style that expresses who I am.

Men and women, women and men. It will never work.

I have forgotten my rave reviews and memorized my vicious ones - like most writers.

Each artist or writer who works in Venice comes to believe that the city yields its most special secret to him or her alone.

I think feminism means what it has always meant - women want to use all their gifts, all their talents and be judged impartially for them. I don't think feminism has ever meant anything else.