As my mother once said: The boys throw stones at the frog in jest. But the frogs die in earnest.

When the memory of one's predecessors is buried, the assumption persists that there were none and each generation of women believes itself to be faced with the burden of doing everything for the first time. And if no one ever did it beforewhy do we think we can succeed now?

Long before I became a feminist in any explicit way, I had turned from writing love stories about women in which women were losers, and adventure stories about men in which the men were winners, to writing adventure stories about a woman in which the woman won. It was one of the hardest things I ever did in my life.

I didn’t and don’t want to be a ‘feminine’ version or a diluted version or a special version or a subsidiary version or an ancillary version, or an adapted version of the heroes I admire. I want to be the heroes themselves.

Art is collective. Always, it has a tradition behind it.

Real artists, it seems to me, are those who don't repeat themselves.

How withered away one can be from a life of unremitting toil.