I do my best work under pressure, so I’ll nick an artery, and my husband isn’t allowed to stanch the bleeding till I’ve banged out a chapter.

The idea that motherhood is inherently somehow a threat to creativity is just absurd.

(and Catholics give out forgiveness at about the same rate as politicians give out promises and whores give out)

Sometimes Allah punishes and sometimes men have to do it, and it is a wise man who knows if it's Allah's turn or his own.

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

It seems to me,' said Magid finally, as the moon became clearer than the sun, 'that you have tried to love a man as if he were an island and you were shipwrecked and you could mark the land with an X. It seems to me it is too late in the day for all that.' Then he gave her a kiss on the forehead that felt like a baptism and she wept like a baby.

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