I wanted to get out of our thimble of a town, where every stone had eyes.

What can't be said can be written. Because writing is a silent act, a labor from the head to the hand.

Suffering doesn't improve human beings, does it?

Anything in literature, including memory, is second-hand.

Women always need other women to lean on. They become friends in order to hate each other better. The more they hate each other, the more inseparable they become.

In this county, we had to walk, eat, sleep and love in fear.

Language is so different from life. How am I supposed to fit the one into the other? How can I bring them together?

Once upon a time they had some bad luck, and they blame everything on that.

In Romanian society, I am not particularly well-liked. I don't often receive invitations.

If you live with death threats, you need friends. So you have to risk that they might spy on you.

I have always written only for myself - to clarify things, to clarify things with myself, to understand in an inner way what is actually happening.

Failures plagued me. Things I had omitted or ignored, neglected. What I should have given and hadn’t. I felt the biting pang of every unfulfillment.

Remember the good hours when the words are flowing well. And never mind the bad hours there is no life without them.

I've noticed that great political leaders are energized by conflict. I'm energized by listening to people's stories and trying to figure out shared solutions. That's the work of an organizer.

Truth is not only violated by falsehood it may be equally outraged by silence.

Reporting the extreme things as if they were the average things will start you on the art of fiction.

It is often our own imperfection which makes us reprove the imperfection of others; a sharp-sighted self-love of others

I've worked with Woody Allen twice and he was like, "Whatever you want to change, it's up to you. If you want to change the words, make them your own."

You people married to Italian men, you know what it's like.

I maintain that to tell a person they are born again, while they are living in carelessness or sin, is a dangerous delusion.

If you never heard opportunity knock, maybe you're never at home.