I was surprised by my daughter's generation and how they were rebelling against the '70s idea that sex was perfect and it should be sought.

A book burrows into your life in a very profound way because the experience of reading is not passive.

What makes a Man love Death, Fanny? Is it because he hopes to avert his own by watchin' the Deaths of others? Doth he hope to devour Death by devourin' Executions with his Eyes? I'll ne'er understand it, if I live to be eight hundred Years. The Human Beast is more Beast than Human, 'tis true.

A baby's a full time job for three adults. Nobody tells you that when you're pregnant, or you'd probably jump off a bridge. Nobody tells you how all-consuming it is to be a mother-how reading goes out the window and thinking too.

We are so scared of being judged that we look for every excuse to procrastinate.

... what is great poetry, after all, but the continuation of the human voice after death?

It took me years to learn to sit at my desk for more than two minutes at a time, to put up with the solitude and the terror of failure, and the godawful silence and the white paper.