I'm very staid compared to my students, actually.

Women need to become literary "criminals," break the literary laws and reinvent their own, because the established laws prevent women from presenting the reality of their lives.

I understand that postmodern literature probably means people like DeLillo, The Fiction Collective, but I don't get it that those writers are really influenced by postmodern theorists.

GET RID OF MEANING. YOUR MIND IS A NIGHTMARE THAT HAS BEEN EATING YOU: NOW EAT YOUR MIND.

If you ask me what I want, I'll tell you. I want everything.

We get on the bandwagon in all sorts of ways - you know minor ways and major ways - like what you've just encountered which isn't censorship exactly, it was something sort of uglier in a way.

Well, I think writing is basically about time and rhythm. Like with jazz. You have your basic melody and then you just riff off of it. And the riffs are about timing.

There are times when the law jeopardizes those who obey it.

My nutritionist read my pathology report and said, "There's only one way you can beat your cancer." "What's that?" "You have to find out what caused it.

I wasn't really into body piercings until I found that about half my female students had them.

A novel is a book with a lot of pages.

Is it not the disparity of wealth that consumes the willing soul. Rather, the golden keys of opportunity clamor softly with fraught anxiety of things which may never come.

Modern life would not be possible if it were not for chemicals, nor would modern natural gas production.

From India to Spain, the brilliant civilization of Islam flourished. What was lost to christendom at this time was not lost to civilization, but quite the contrary.

Enjoy your life. No curse hangs over you, nor did it ever. No devil chases after your soul. Sing and dance and be merry.

Yesterday, Attorney General John Ashcroft had surgery to remove his gall bladder. Doctors say the surgery was difficult because Ashcroft refused to take his clothes off.

Lots of shy people dress a bit too much. It's just kind of an armour. People say the same thing about me.

Family. A snug kind of word.

I still love music - that's never gonna go away.

To name a thing is easy: the difficulty is to discern it before its appearance.

The only form of fiction in which real characters do not seem out of place is history. In novels they are detestable.