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

I was driven, as have been many writers, both by a repulsion of the childhood home's narrow confines and a desire to reach further, to keep desiring more of a future not yet imagined and not yet written down.

I always wanted to be pretty as a girl, although I believed it was not possible.

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

If you've been in a symbolic struggle long enough, even when the struggle is over, you don't know it's over.

I do want to do the entire alphabet. There's in [Walker's Alphabet] a poem called "A Life" in that grouping. I was going to change that title to "A."

As I grew older - and even when I was younger - it had puzzled me why I continued and continue to be heterosexual.