Truly things are better in general now, in America, than in the past.

I think people feel for a long time that they ought to know how to write a novel in two drafts.

Whoever would write books? It's suffering as well as greatly satisfying. And certainly there's suffering in the sense that you don't know for a long time how to do it.

We still have so many cultures in which people are imprisoned and whipped and killed for writing what they think.

In many cultures, women are sometimes literally kept from learning to read or from going to school.

There's the belief that we can't be smart enough to write. And certainly censorship of women, too.

You have to write fiction that mirrors the actual world, which has people of all sorts in it.

I heard a white writer say, 'Oh, I'd never put black people in my writing, I'm afraid I would offend someone by doing it wrong.' I can't bear that!

There is a lot of censorship about writing that's exerted from all directions, from families or governments and society, even the fear of being offensive in some way.

Little children are all writers.

I love it when people can help me with my work, so I do show it.

Ever since happiness heard your name, it has been running through the streets trying to find you.

Even the demons are encouraged when their chief is "not lost in loss itself.

A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others.

I will defend Planned Parenthood. I will defend Roe v. Wade, and I will defend women's rights to make their own health care decisions.

I keep my mouth shut now. I've turned into a professional coward.

Stun settings are for people who can't commit.

Due to a life of training and playing, I seem to spend half my time in the shower.

I've never met a color I couldn't love.

Sometimes you only need to have a few words with a person to know you would like to have many more.

I grew up raised by my mom and my two sisters, so I never had a real male influence in my life. I never really understood heterosexual male relationships.