Long after the bomb falls and you and your good deeds are gone, cockroaches will still be here, prowling the streets like armored cars.

I was like a social worker for lepers. My clients had a chunk of their body they wanted to give away; for a price I was there to receive it.

I think powerful women don't care whether or not they're liked.

I think it's true about people now being closer to their parents, since the '60s, really. The parents are no longer from a different planet, the 1950s ideas of American family. We could be friends with our parents. After the '60s, it wasn't like a person smoking pot was what the parents would be appalled at.

I think in a lot of ways, writing, when you're really in there, is like being an actress because you're in somebody else's head.

With publicity comes humiliation.

If you want to be a writer, all you need is a piece of paper and a pencil, and I had a manual typewriter. It doesn't cost money to write. It costs money to make art. So I would just write. I would hand out stories in the classes in high school. And the teacher would say, "Whatever you do, don't become a writer."