I'm as much influenced by Joseph Smith and the Mormons as I am, more so, than by Eliot. Actually, I'm much more influenced by the poetry of the Mormons.

we live our fate before we realize exactly what it is.

If you don't have obsessions, don't write. my characters are obsessed.

I never thought of myself as either a woman or a man. I thought of myself as a person who was born to a writer, who was doomed to be a writer.

I don't believe there can be a poetic novel without political consciousness. I have a strong political conscience.

If you understand hallucination and illusion, you don't blindly follow any leader. You must know if the person is sane or insane, over the abyss.

Dreiser... I love... and almost wouldn't speak to anyone who ever attacked him.