I'm quite sure that most writers would sustain real poetry if they could, but it takes devotion and talent.

I think there is a rage against women. I've come to see that now although at the time I did not notice it. I was preoccupied with my teaching and my writing.

There were also some cruel reviews by women, but the tone of the male reviewers, sometimes hysterical, was different. I have suffered, but I don't want to name names but there have been men who have seemed to want to destroy me or my writing, men I don't even know.

All my writing is about the recognition that there is no single reality. But the beauty of it is that you nevertheless go on, walking towards utopia, which may not exist, on a bridge which might end before you reach the other side.

If you know anything about James Whitcomb Riley, you know that Little Orphan Annie is one of the most fantastic characters who ever lived in America before Charlie Chaplin.

When the dream came into being, I always pursued it.

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