Delia picked at the raw sores of her conscience...Drunk or sober, Delia lived in the small town in her heart, ignoring the world in which all her love had turned to grief.

Two or three things I know for sure, and one of them is that if we are not beautiful to each other, we cannot know beauty in any form.

Change, when it comes, cracks everything open.

Things come apart so easily when they have been held together with lies.

Fiction is a piece of truth that turns lies to meaning.

Two or three things I know for sure, and one of them is the way you can both hate and love something you are not sure you understand.

I did not begin with craft, I began with strong feelings and worked toward craft.

Class, race, sexuality, gender and all other categories by which we categorize and dismiss each other need to be excavated from the inside.

One of the strengths I derive from my class background is that I am accustomed to contempt.

The only magic we have is what we make in ourselves, the muscles we build up on the inside, the sense of belief we create from nothing.

I have wanted everything as a writer and a woman, but most of all a world changed utterly by my revelations.

...it seemed marriage by its very design was meant to seek out love and destroy it.

Nothing will divert me from my purpose.

One of the most difficult tasks men can perform, however much others may despise it, is the invention of good games.

Women have hunger two-fold, shyness four-fold, daring six-fold, and lust eight-fold as compared to men.

In a world of war, pain and suffering, all I want for Christmas is an underwater watch and a silver clutch rod for my dirt bike.

Smell alone amongst the senses can either destroy or quite remake a man.

You always want to make the best film you can. If anything I feel more relaxed after the Oscar. I feel like I have a chance to just tell the stories I want to tell and it's actually been really nice.

A lie preserved in stained glass doesn't make it more true.

When once a certain class of people has been placed by the temporal and spiritual authorities outside the ranks of those whose life has value, then nothing comes more naturally to men than murder.

The best thing I ever did with my life was stand up and say I've got Alzheimer's.