Each time we had a visiting writer, I asked what she thought of women and humor. By the end of the year, I had perfected my question and asked Adrienne Rich why there was so little written about women and humor. She looked at me right in the eye and said, 'You write it.' I took that as an order.

As you can imagine I'm disappointed as anything that I was not selected to be the presidential running mate. And I find it continually appalling that it would be a radical thing to have a woman on the ticket.

Once he became president, George [H.] Bush revealed a vein of Styrofoam and no matter how deep he tried to go, he always ended up bobbing on the surface. His inaugural speech was like being present at the death of language.

A friend told me that each morning when we get up we have to decide whether we are going to save or savor the world. I don't think that is the decision. It's not an either-or, save or savor. We have to do both, save and savor the world.

Of all sports, football seems to be the most sanctioned homosocial opportunity for straight men to be with each other, pat butts, struggle, strive, and take showers together. All that talk of tight ends and penetration. The reason there are face masks on those helmets is so that can't kiss each other.

I've always felt that a really good joke, a really good one-liner, is a really good line of poetry. It's imagistic, it's compact, there is a rhythm to it.

[On being lesbian:] One pointer: don't come out to your dad in a moving vehicle.