I'm always surprised to hear or read my work described, "In angry tones, she says." No! In truthful tones! Does truth have a tone? I don't know.

A tourist is an ugly human being.

The past is a room full of baggage and rubbish and sometimes things that are of use, but if they are of real use, I have kept them.

I don't feel I'm angry. I feel as though I'm describing something true. If I had stabbed my husband, I could understand being called "angry." If I had an affair with my husband's best friend and written about that experience, I could see the anger. But I'm not doing that.

He must have smiled at me, though I don't really know, but I don't like to think that I would love someone who hadn't first smiled at me.

This naming of things is so crucial to possession - a spiritual padlock with the key thrown irretrievably away - that it is a murder, an erasing, and it is not surprising that when people have felt themselves prey to it (conquest), among their first acts of liberation is to change their names.

I like cooking, but I think someone else ought to do the dishes.