Sometimes, walking with a friend, I forget the world.

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.

In the park I met other women and I started to get interested in their lives. I developed a lot of pressure to talk about women's lives, and children's lives, too. Children interest me tremendously.

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

I'm really sorry for people growing up right now, because they have some cockeyed idea that they can get by with their eyes closed; the cane they're tapping is money, and that won't take them in the right direction.

…I go through a story for lies. I might discover the lie of trying to show off. Sometimes they’re lies of character. Sometimes they are lies of writing the most beautiful sentence in the world that has nothing to do with the story.

Art is too long, and life is too short.