You ask me why I spend my life writing? Do I find entertainment? Is it worthwhile? Above all, does it pay? If not, then, is there a reason?... I write only because there is a voice within me. That will not be still.

It seemed silly to wash one day when I would only have to wash again the next. It made me tired just to think of it.

The constant struggle in mature life, I think, is to accept the necessity of tragedy and conflict, and not to try to escape to some falsely simple solution which does not include these more somber complexities.

I feel that very strongly: having been an academic, having been tempted by the invitation to stay on to become a Ph.D., a professor, and all that, one side of me certainly does respect all disciplines, as long as they don't ossify.

I need some older, wiser being to cry to. I talk to God, but the sky is empty, and Orion walks by and doesn't speak.

I want, I think, to be omniscient. I think I would like to call myself "the girl who wanted to be God." Yet if I were not in this body where would I be-perhaps I am destined to be classified and qualified. But, oh, I cry out against it.

As a poet I would say everything should be able to come into a poem but I can't put toothbrushes in a poem. I really can't.