The kinds of good friends I have are people who are perfectly willing to have me say I'll see them in six months, and live right next door.

Charity is a cop-out so traditionally female in its apparent self-effacement that there seems resonant comfort in it. We're no longer supposed to serve the imaginations of men who have dominated us. We are to give up ourselves instead to those whose suffering is greater than our own. Looking down is just as distorting as looking up and as dangerous in perpetuating hierarchies.

Writing is far too hard work to say what someone else wants me to. Serving it as a craft, using it as a way of growing in my own understanding, seems to me to be a beautiful way to live. And if that product is shareable with other people, so much the better.

Morality is a test of our conformity rather than our integrity.

Conventions, like clichés, have a way of surviving their own usefulness.

My private measure of success is daily. If this were to be the last day of my life would I be content with it? To live in a harmonious balance of commitments and pleasures is what I strive for.

The kinds of good friends I have are people who are perfectly willing to have me say I'll see them in six months, and live right next door.