Your mid-thirties is a good time because you know a fair amount, you have some self-control.

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.

Under every friendship there is a difficult sentence that must be said, in order that the friendship can be survived.

Cambridge was a joy. Tediously. People reading books in a posh place. It was my fantasy. I loved it. I miss it still.

Protect the time and space in which you write. Keep everybody away from it, even the people who are most important to you.

Can't a rapper insist, like other artists, on a fictional reality, in which he is somehow still on the corner, despite occupying the penthouse suite?

When I was young, I was very technical about these things. I didn't like to admit to any intimate relation with what I was writing.