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

When you make an omelet, as when you make love, affection counts for more than technique.

You are my angel and my damnation; in your presence I reach divine ecstasy and in your absence I descent to hell.

One of the characteristics of North American culture is that you can always start again. You can always move forward, cross a border of a state or a city or a county, and move West, most of the time West. You leave behind guilt, past traditions, memories. You are as if born again, in the sense of the snake: You leave your skin behind and you begin again. For most people in the world, that is totally impossible.

Only in romance novels or in thrillers people live outside of a social and political context.

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.

One of the things that always comes up in my writing is the search for freedom, especially in women. I always write about women who are marginalized, who have no means or resources and somehow manage to get out of those situations with incredible strength - and that is more important than anything.