Sometimes, one wants to have the illusion that one is making ones own life, out of ones own resources.

The choices a writer makes within a tradition - preferring Milton to Moliere, caring for Barth over Barthelme - constitute some of the most personal information we can have about him.

I find it impossible to experience either pride or shame over accidents of genetics in which I had no active part. I'm not necessarily proud to be female. I am not even proud to be human — I only love to be so.

It reminds me that those of us who turn in disgust from what we consider an overinflated liberal-bourgeois sense of self should be careful what we wish for: our denuded networked selves don't look more free, they just look more owned.

A writer's duty is to register what it is like for him or her to be in the world.

First rule of writing: When still a child, make sure you read a lot of books. Spend more time doing this than anything else.

I don't actually believe in the extension of consciousness after death.