I walked out to brood on this life of ours, which seems from birth to death to be a steady loss, disguised by sudden gains and happiness, which persuade us of good fortune, when all the while the glass is emptying.

I had lines inside me, a string of guiding lights. I had language. Fiction and poetry are doses, medicines. What they heal is the rupture reality makes on the imagination. I had been damaged, and a very important part of me had been destroyed - that was my reality, the facts of my life. But on the other side of the facts was who I could be, how I could feel. And as long as I had words for that, images for that, stories for that, then I wasn't lost.

I hate the word lesbian; it tells you nothing; its only purpose is to inflame.

You know every cell in our bodies is completely renewed every seven years, so how can we talk about being the same person? We're absolutely not.

What a strange world this is when you can have as much sex as you like but love is taboo.

My characters are always on the outside; the spotlight's not on them. But they do get somewhere.

There’s no story that’s the start of itself.