The Seventies seemed like this really open time. There were a lot of strong women characters deciding what kind of artists they wanted to be.

Every person has a range. In fiction, you get to be it all. I’m as much the men in my book as I am the women. I write how I write and there is no mission to stake a claim.

To be alive is to listen quietly while other people talk. That's how you learn something.

I was doing that thing the infatuated do, stitching destiny onto the person we want stitched to us.

I’d been listening to men talk since I arrived in New York City. That’s what men like to do. Talk. Profess like experts. When one finally came along who didn’t say much, I listened.

Danzon is my favorite Cuban music, played by a traditional string orchestra with flute and piano. It's very formally structured but romantic music, which derives from the French-Haitian contradance.

People who want their love easy don't really want love.

For me, truth cracks open in the places where things do not cohere. That's how life is.

It's amazing how life conspires to set you up with what you need.

A funny thing about women and machines: the combination made men curious.

I don't regard the real and true and authentic as something to claim as a moral high ground.

When family really needed you, nothing else mattered.

Sometimes one doesn't have to be part of the experience to realize and learn from the experience.

Men do not learn much from the lessons of history and that is the most important of all the lessons of history.

Enjoying art is a personal matter. It's made up by contemplation, silence, abstraction.

...guilt leads to righteous action, but rarely is it the right action.

Fire consumes, but cold preserves.

The tree does not die, it waits.

The 'Always Keep the Faith' tattoo I have on the front represents my desire to protect my beliefs.

You always want your work to be seen as long as it's good.

There may be no single thing more important in our efforts to achieve meaningful work and fulfilling relationships than to learn to practice the art of communication.