...I have come to make distinctions between what I call the academy and literature, the moral equivalents of church and God. The academy may lie, but literature tries to tell the truth.

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.

Bitterness gives ill-health and waste life.Gratefulness leads to good health and happy life.

She whispered, "Even with a broken hand, you are the knight I'd most want and trust to rescue me-and I know you can do it. You are the boldest, bravest, most noble knight in the Holy Empire.

We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.

I hope that my work helps people - that's the thing that drives me and keeps me going.

Mind is the absence of meditation. The moment meditation arises in you, mind is found nowhere.

I like words. Words are places, rooms, distant airs, thin and tropical. They make us feel and imagine we are more than our bodies.

She was always like that: grateful for life itself. Her glass was not only half full, it was gold plated with a permanent refill.

It is easier to exclude harmful passions than to rule them, and to deny them admittance than to control them after they have been admitted.

... of the two kinds of order, the conscious and the unconscious order, only one is real. It's the order in the deep hidden places.

I think it’s fine for girls to ask boys out. I actually prefer it.