I have been a woman for 46 years and I only recently realized I can't change it and I like it.

Someone has said that conversation is sex for the soul.

At my age, people prefer to stay in a relationship that is not working. I do not understand that. I think it takes a lot of courage to separate. But it takes more energy to stay in something that is not working.

A book is not an end in itself; it is only a way to touch someone - a bridge extended across a space of loneliness and obscurity - and sometimes it is a way of winning other people to our causes.

Society decides when we get old. But the spirit never ages.

Feminism is dated? Yes, for privileged women like my daughter and all of us here today, but not for most of our sisters in the rest of the world who are still forced into premature marriage, prostitution, forced labor - they have children that they don't want or they cannot feed.

I have a very acute sense of place and time, so all of my stories are rooted in a place and a time.