Creative writing and literacy go hand and hand.

There are times in life when, instead of complaining, you do something about your complaints.

I see a resurgence of interest in poetry. I am less optimistic about the prospects for the arts when it comes to federal funding.

All of us have moments in our childhood where we come alive for the first time. And we go back to those moments and think, This is when I became myself.

A good poem is like a bouillon cube. It's concentrated and it nourishes you when you need it.

Courage has nothing to do with our determination to be great. It has to do with what we decide in that moment when we are called upon to be more.

Being true to yourself really means being true to all the complexities of the human spirit.

We should always do something that makes us feel like a child again. Keep learning, no matter what it is.

The library is an arena of possibility, opening both a window into the soul and a door onto the world.

I've always been intrigued by the way history works, the way we decide what is mentioned.

Sometimes a word is found so right it trembles at the slightest explanation.

Passion can’t sustain itselfforever.

Low and grovelling thoughts of God must be given up

Thunder without sound jolted the air around her. The violence of it was magnificent, immaculate, glorious.

Photography is my only language.

When I was a little kid, I was the first kid in my neighborhood to have a pet alligator.

There was a writer in the '20s called Christopher Morley, who I remember a little bit of, who had some influence on me, but I couldn't tell you what it was.

My theory is that if you look confident you can pull off anything - even if you have no clue what you're doing.

Rachel Cusk's books are like pop-up volumes for grown-ups, the prose springing out of the page to bop you neatly between the eyes with its insights.

Capitalism gave the world what it needed, a higher standard of living for a steadily increasing number of people.

Well, it hurts my feelings because the person that I read about sometimes in these gossip magazines is not the person who I am. So I don't want, you know, my fans to think that's how I am.