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

My writing comes not from the happy moments, but from struggle and grief.

Women are the only ones who will be able to eliminate the patriarchy, and when that happens all of us will win, men as much as women.

Those who seek the truth run the risk of finding it.

Writing is like making love. Don't worry about the orgasm, just concentrate on the process.

The idea of the book ["The Japanese Lover"] came in a conversation that I had with a friend walking in the streets of New York. We were talking about our mothers, and I was telling her how old my mother was, and she was telling me about her mother. Her mother was Jewish, and she said that she was in a retirement home and that she had had a friend for 40 years that was a Japanese gardener. This person had been very important in my friend's upbringing.

Nothing changes; we humans repeat the same sins over and over, eternally.