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.

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.

People will sometimes say, "Why don't you write more politics?" And I have to explain to them that writing the lives of women IS politics.

To translate a poem from thinking into English takes all night.

I was a fantastic student until ten, and then my mind began to wander.

Just when I most needed important conversation, a sniff of the man-wide world, that is, at least one brainy companion who could translate my friendly language into his tongue of undying carnal love, I was forced to lounge in our neighborhood park, surrounded by children.

My vocabulary is adequate for writing notes and keeping journals but absolutely useless for an active moral life.