I understood finding the place you are born in an unbearable prison and wanting something completely different from what you are familiar with, knowing it represents a haven.

There's something to be said about a slightly plump person—you have just enough of too much.

The inevitable is no less a shock just because it is inevitable.

Express everything you like. No word can hurt you. None. No idea can hurt you. Not being able to express an idea or word will hurt you more. Like a bullet.

I was given a dictionary when I was seven, and I read it because I had nothing else to read. I read it the way you read a book.

People don't make changes because things are wonderful.

I would be lost without the feeling of antagonism that people have towards me. I write out of defiance.

People only say I’m angry because I’m black and I’m a woman.

A great piece of literature encompasses all that is and all that will be.

...yet a memory cannot be trusted, for so much of the experience of the past is determined by the experience of the present.

I'm so used to being misunderstood.

I don't wear the opinions of others anymore, I learnt to dress myself.

The flower is the poetry of reproduction. It is the example of the eternal seductiveness of life.

The easiest way for readers to connect with characters and feel sympathy is to make the character entertaining, sympathetic and likeable.

O pastoral heart of England! like a psalm Of green days telling with a quiet beat.

A way of life that keeps saying 'Around the next corner, above the next step,' works against the natural order of things and makes it so difficult to be happy and good.

Nothing, except the weather report or a general maxim of conduct, is so unsafe to rely upon as a theory of fiction.

My recipe for success is chance, basically. Just luck. It's a miracle that people still hire me after some of the stuff I've gotten away with. Honestly!

The fact is, there aren't just two sides to any issue, there's almost always a range of responses, and "it depends" is almost always the right answer in any big question.

It's a good idea to pay attention to the world and try to understand how it works rather than how you would like it to work.

Specificity of time and place drop away and one starts to think about the picture, as much as what it is of.