I have loved books all my life. There is nothing more beautiful in our material world than the book.

I don't think the Palestinian people or Afghan children or some other things I'm concerned about are at the top of other people's agendas - not right now, when America is going through such a recession and people are suffering across the board financially. But I think all that will change.

I'm a worker. I do the work to communicate, and I want people to embrace it, and when they do I'm happy.

I wasn't taking drugs or drinking. I was working and working and working. But I wasn't writing anything.

I wanted to see who this Yeats person was, and I said to my mother, 'I want a book by this person.' And she bought it for me, and a lot of it was over my head, but I had it.

I gave you a wrist watch, baby, and you wouldn't even give me the time of day.

Most women writers don't interest me because they're hung up with being a woman, they're hung up with being Jewish, they're hung up with being somebody or other. Rather than just going, just spurting, just creating.