The love of the family, the love of one person can heal. It heals the scars left by a larger society. A massive, powerful society.

I'm a religious woman. And I feel I have responsibility. I have no modesty at all. I'm even afraid of it - it's a learned affectation and it's just stuck on me like decals.

Life loves the liver of it. You must live and life will be good to you.

Each time a woman stands up for herself, without knowing it possibly, without claiming it, she stands up for all women.

I don't think there's such a thing as autobiographical fiction. If I say it happened, it happened, even if only in my mind.

Have enough courage to love.

When asked how she knows when her writing is where she wants it to be: "I know when it's the best I can do. It may not be the best there is. Another writer may do it much better. But I know when it's the best I can do. I know that one of the great arts that the writer develops is the art of saying, 'No. No, I'm finished. Bye.' And leaving it alone. I will not write it into the ground. I will not write the life out of it. I won't do that."