There’s something really rich and powerful in not talking about what you need to talk about sometimes.

I have worked really hard to defy categorization, to break down a taxonomy whenever it comes my way.

Impotence, fetishism, bisexuality, and bondage are all facts of life, and our fiction should reflect that.

The past was so past it hurt.

I think literature is best when it's voicing what we would prefer not to talk about.

I am in Boston right now, in fact, to do work at the New England Historical Genealogical Library, where I'm trying to finish up tracing my lineage back to the seventeenth century.

I suppose I should say that I treasure blasphemy, as a faith of the highest order.

Genre is a bookstore problem, not a literary problem.

I judged about a zillion awards this year so Ive been reading a lot of books that just came out.

It's also true, however, that having conquered the regional writer ghetto, I am now intent on conquering the nationalist writer ghetto and moving out into the world more.

I'm trying to read more dead people because I keep having to read stuff for juries and so forth.

When we drug ourselves to blot out our soul's call, we are being good Americans and exemplary consumers.

Wisdom is a dreadfully wonderful gift, giving you great insight but terrible pain that you learn from.

We love because it is the only true adventure.

Do not confuse motion and progress. A rocking horse keeps moving but does not make any progress.

We need policies for long-term security that are designed by women, focused on women, executed by women not at the expense of men, or instead of men, but alongside and with men.

I was reading everything under the sun from music history to feminist literature to Shakespeare, which is why I'm not a complete idiot at this time.

Something I learned long ago. It is not necessary to know what a person is afraid of. It is enough to know the person is afraid.

When your father directed your mother in 'Orpheus Descending,' the kid's going to be a theater nerd.

Dogs live with man as courtiers 'round a monarch, steeped in the flattery of his notice ... to push their favor in this world of pickings and caresses is, perhaps, the business of their lives.

Art is an effort to make you walk a half an inch above ground.