There is something powerful in the whispering of obscenities, about those in power. There's something delightful about it, something naughty, secretive, forbidden, thrilling. It's like a spell, of sorts. It deflates them, reduces them to the common denominator where they can be dealt.

You can’t buy it, but it has a price,” said Oryx. “Everything has a price.

To live in prison is to live without mirrors. To live without mirrors is to live without the self.

The object is very clear in the fight against racism; you have reasons why you're opposed to it. But when you're writing a novel, you don't want the reader to come out of it voting yes or no to some question. Life is more complicated than that.

we lived in the gaps between the stories

Some of our earliest writing, in cuneiform, was about who owes what.

The goals of the feminist movement have not been achieved, and those who claim we're living in a post-feminist era are either sadly mistaken or tired of thinking about the whole subject.