Hindsight, usually looked down upon, is probably as valuable as foresight, since it does include a few facts.

I was fortunate that by the time I was born, there were a lot of comforts and at the same time I lived in a neighborhood where it was brought to my eyes every single day that people didn't live like me. Every day I knew that many of my friends "got relief." That was important in my thinking about the world, thinking that not everybody lived that way.

The women's movement was coming, but I didn't know it in 1956-1957, when I began to write.

I liked the education. I liked people learning things all around me and I liked going to people's classes.

It's a terrible thing to die young. Still, it saves a lot of time.

You know the mind is an astonishing, long-living, erotic thing.

I do lots of reading and speaking at many universities about literature and also about politics, which is as much a part of my life as the literature.