Not to be alone. To be spared the possibility of knowing oneself, in aloneness.

For obviously the advantage for most writers is that no one sees them. The writer is invisible, which confers power.

The books I read I do enjoy, very much; otherwise I wouldn't read them. Most of them are for review, for the New York Review of Books, and substantial.

I write in longhand and assemble lots of notes, and then I try to collate them into a coherent chronology. It's like groping along in the dark. I like writing and find it challenging, but I don't find it easy.

God's blessing is not always to be distinguished from His wrath.

I am what would be called a 'mainstream feminist,' not a radical feminist.

Sometimes people surprise us. People we believe we know.