Literature is a place for generosity and affection and hunger for equals - not a prizefight ring. We are increased, confirmed in our medium, roused to do our best, by every good writer, every fine achievement. Would we want one good writer or fine book less? The sense of writers being pitted against each other is bred primarily by the workings of the commercial marketplace, and by critics lauding one writer at the expense of another while ignoring the existence of nearly all.

It is distraction, not meditation, that becomes habitual; interruption, not continuity; spasmodic, not constant toil.

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

She would not exchange her solitude for anything. Never again to be forced to move to the rhythms of others.

Not to have an audience is a kind of death.

I very much dislike the word "race," and I never use it. I use the word "racist." Race is not a fact. There is only one race: human. Skin color is less than 2 percent of the DNA.

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