I'm always resisting [my muse]. I'm resisting her power.

One arrives at a recognition that one needs to be distracted.

I came to realize this weird projection: you are much more passionate about hating something outside of you when you know that something is also in you.

After Fifty Shades of Grey, I think my writing is pretty tame, isn't it?

"Time" does not mean "occasion."

These commonplace categories - wife, mother, housewife, teacher - are in fact teleological referents. They gesture to profound states of being that animate, absorb and saturate the subject, like indelible dyes spilled repeatedly over a plain fabric. No matter if the fabric is sturdy or delicate, translucent or opaque, those dyes will stain. They will color the days and years and life.

[Cancer] didn't make me more intense about not working more and just having fun more. It didn't do that either.