writers do not choose their subjects; their subjects choose them.

The trick is not how much pain you feel - but how much joy you feel

I am thinking of the onion again. . . . Not self-righteous like the proletarian potato, nor a siren like the apple. No show-off like the banana. But a modest, self-effacing vegetable, questioning, introspective, peeling itself away, or merely radiating halos like ripples.

We've lost more men to homosexuality than we ever did in two world wars.

Pleasure is terrifying because it breaks down the boundaries between people. Embracing passion means living with fear.

I had been a feminist all my life, but the big problem was how to make your feminism jibe with you unappeasable hunger for male bodies.

Anybody who instantly goes from being a poet and a graduate student to being a public figure has to be in a state of shock. First people want to praise you, and then they want to attack you. No one can prepare you for it.