Think about all that we've lost that has been said orally because nobody was taking it down. I feel very fortunate to live in a time where we have so many different voices. We have a much richer literature than we've ever had, and we can know America so much better.

That's what I want to be when I grow up, just a peaceful wreck holding hands with other peaceful wrecks.

I could not live by literature if only to begin with, because of the slow maturing of my work and its special character.

Compared to men writers of like distinction and years of life, few women writers have had lives of unbroken productivity, or leave behind a 'body of work.' Early beginnings, then silence; or clogged late ones (foreground silences); long periods between books (hidden silences); characterize most of us.

More than in any other human relationship, overwhelmingly more, motherhood means being instantly interruptible, responsive, and responsible

Women have the right to say: this is surface, this falsifies reality, this degrades.

Better mankind born without mouths and stomachs than always to worry about money to buy, to shop, to fix, to cook, to wash, to clean.