One learns much more by writing fiction, because the insights come from those deeper subconscious levels where the greater and more interesting truths lie.

I write because in the act of creation there comes that mysterious, abundant sense of being both parent and child; I am giving birth to an Other and simultaneously being reborn as a child in the playground of creation.

Why are there no great women artists?' sounds as ignorant of human geography as the query 'Why are there no Eskimo tennis teams?

All our parents have levels of deviousness. We're driven to write about this discrepancy between the bright shining selves they invented and the monsters lurking underneath.

The irreversibility of time. That's the hardest thing to accept at our age, that's the most violent aspect of death.

I shall never cease to marvel at the way we beg for love and tyranny.

Art is both a vengeance against reality and a reconciliation with it.