In general she had found that the main drawback in being a man was that conversations were less interesting.

There have been great societies that did not use the wheel, but there have been no societies that did not tell stories.

While we read a novel, we are insane—bonkers. We believe in the existence of people who aren't there, we hear their voices... Sanity returns (in most cases) when the book is closed.

He is far too intelligent to become really cerebral.

Certainly the effort to remain unchanged, young, when the body gives so impressive a signal of change as the menopause, is gallant; but it is a stupid, self-sacrificial gallantry, better befitting a boy of twenty than a woman of forty-five or fifty. Let the athletes die young and laurel-crowned. Let the soldiers earn the Purple Hearts. Let women die old, white-crowned, with human hearts.

Art is action. The way I live my life to its highest degree is by writing, the practice of art.

You must come to terms with your wholeself. the wholeness which exceeds all our virtue and all our vice.