At my age, in this still hierarchical time, people often ask me if I’m “passing the torch.” I explain that I’m keeping my torch, thank you very much-and I’m using it to light the torches of others.

Looking at traditional marriages, it seems the surest way for a woman to be alone is to get married.

The same big TV antenna dwarfed each roof, as though life here could only be bearable if lived elsewhere in the imagination.

I'm completely happy not having children. I mean, everybody does not have to live in the same way. And as somebody said, "Everybody with a womb doesn't have to have a child any more than everybody with vocal cords has to be an opera singer."

So why is the sex barrier not taken as seriously as the racial one?

It's a big gift to be recognizable as part of something that matters to people, but that's not the same as being responsible for something.

Writers are notorious for using any reason to keep from working: over-researching, retyping, going to meetings, waxing the floors - anything.