There is probably an innate masochism in a lot of women that ends up disappointed if men don't ill-treat them.

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

Writing is an act of generosity toward other people.

Pride is what you can afford or think you can afford.

It is easier for the reader to judge, by a thousand times, than for the writer to invent. The writer must summon his Idea out of nowhere, and his characters out of nothing, and catch words as they fly, and nail them to the page. The reader has something to go by and somewhere to start from, given to him freely and with great generosity by the writer. And still the reader feels free to find fault.

If you wake up in the morning with a great sense of the things that have to be done in the day in order to get through to the next day, you lose the sense of the day as any kind of end in itself.

by and large, nothing is as bad as you fear, or as good as you hope.