Patriarchy is having the power to name.

I do think that memoirs by women are reviewed differently and considered somewhat outside of the canon.

My rage and sense of alienation as to how women have been written, have allowed themselves to be written, in so many ways, has political roots.

All of my wildness is in the writing. I have discovered I have to be orderly and boring in my personal life to be wild in my work.

I think the mad wives and mistresses are my hysterics - even the fictionalized ones. I want to trace how they were silenced, I want to find for them an escape route.

I am worthy of being read. I mean, one has to be convinced of one's genius.

My writing has always been considered extremely important, even though I make slim-to-no money at it.

I am home because I am a writer, but sometimes, when I'm not productive (productivity: the expectations of capitalism), I feel like a terrible housewife, or a sick person.

I think that writing and publishing are different. I think I will always write; I might not always publish. The idea of not publishing is wonderful!

The hope in literature is that we are allowed to be imperfect, to write of our imperfection, without being overly critiqued for being unlikeable.

I think for a woman, getting older can help, through personal experience, although of course older women are then rendered invisible in our society, another existential crisis.

It is the business of the future to be dangerous

I realized that it was not as easy to commit suicide as to contemplate it. And since then, whenever I have heard of someone threatening to commit suicide, it has had little or no effect on me.

Focus your whole attention on heaven

Cars did not kill off horses. Digital publishing will not kill off books.

Fall down. Make a mess. Break something occasionally. Know that your mistakes are your own unique way of getting to where you need to be. And remember that the story is never over.

The answers are always inside the problem, not outside.

Two is not a winner, and three nobody remembers. What does it take to be number one?

The most important element in a picture cannot be defined.

Eisenhower is my choice as the American of the 20th Century. Of all the men I've studied and written about, he is the brightest and the best.

Leadership is the intelligent use of power.