I would say my theme has always been paradise lost, always the lost cause, the lost leader, the lost utopia.

Twice in his life Eugene Victor Debs took the long leap to the Ultima Thule of prison, passing beyond the realm of the acceptable into the nonacceptable, from respectability into the criminal community of the monster who was an enemy to the people.

A lawyer I once knew told me of a strange case, a suffragette who had never married. After her death, he opened her trunk and discovered 50 wedding gowns.

I've been willing to go for years without publishing. That's been my career.

If there is no certain reality, the idea of following a leader must be scrutinized.

The first money I ever had was when I received an award from the American Association of University Women.

I believe that all my work explores the human desire or obsession for utopias, and the structure of all my works is the search for utopias lost and rediscovered.