Woolf wanted to say dangerous things in Orlando but she did not want to say them in the missionary position.

We are told not to privilege one story above another. All the stories must be told. Well, maybe that's true, maybe all stories are worth hearing, but not all stories are worth telling.

Memory loss is one way of coping with damage.

Writers have to have a knack for listening. I need to be able to hear what is being said to me by the voices I create.

Confidence and superiority: It's the usual fundamentalist stuff: I've got the truth, and you haven't.

I know now, after fifty years, that the finding/losing, forgetting/remembering, leaving/returning, never stops. The whole of life is about another chance, and while we are alive, till the very end, there is always another chance.

What should I do about the wild and the tame? The wild heart that wants to be free, and the tame heart that wants to come home. I want to be held. I don't want you to come too close. I want you to scoop me up and bring me home at nights. I don't want to tell you where I am. I want to keep a place among the rocks where no one can find me. I want to be with you.