I saw my ex-husband in the street. I was sitting on the steps of the new library. Hello, my life, I said. We had once been married for twenty-seven years, so I felt justified. He said, What? What life? No life of mine.

It wasn't until I lived in the countryside that I began to understand the life of the countryside and the people in it and trees and water. Just learning about water is an education for a city person.

For me, the meaning of life is the next generation.

That heartbreaking moment when you finish an amazing book, and you are forced to return to reality.

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.

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

Sometimes before people know what they're saying, they already love the language.