I believe in the curative powers of love as the English believe in tea or Catholics believe in the Miracle of Lourdes.

I think art, the discipline of creating, really does require tremendous solitude. But the whole creative process can seal your life to such an extent that while you're creating, you feel very self-sufficient. I've certainly experienced that.

If time were like a passage of music, you could keep going back to it until you got it right.

Rebels defy the rules of society, risking everything to retain their humanity. If the world Atwood depicts is chilling, if 'God is losing,' the only hope for optimism is a vision that includes the inevitability of human struggle against the prevailing order.

Sacrificing everything for one's craft is something some people can't help. They can't help themselves. They must do it. They're driven to do it.

What if you lived your entire life completely without urgency? You went to classes, you ate your meals, on Saturday nights a boy you didn't love took you to the movies; now and then you actually had a conversation with someone. The rest of the time -the hours that weren't accounted for-you spent waiting for something to happen to you; when you were particularly desperate, you went out looking for it.

We tend to make up the people we fall in love with