Fiction stretches our sensibilities and our understanding, as mere information never can.

One must be careful with words. Words turn probabilities into facts and by sheer force of definition translate tendencies into habits.

The desire for self-expression afflicts people when they feel there is something of themselves which is not getting through to the outside world.

Letters crossing in the post, unfamiliar tunes heard three times in one day, the way that blows of fate descend upon the same bowed shoulders, and the beams of good fortune glow perpetually upon the blessed. Fairy tales, as I said, are lived out daily. There is far more going on in the world than we ever imagine.

Writers were never meant to be professionals. Writing is not a profession, it is an activity, an essentially amateur occupation. It is what you do when you are not living.

I didn't even know I was a feminist until I read it on the back of one of my own books.

I know that I'm a real writer because sometimes I write a story just because I want to; not because someone's told me to.