We come crawling through these cracks, orphans, lobotomies; if you ask me what I want, I'll tell you. I want everything. Whole rotten world come down and break. Let me spread my legs.

Women need to become literary "criminals," break the literary laws and reinvent their own, because the established laws prevent women from presenting the reality of their lives.

I understand that postmodern literature probably means people like DeLillo, The Fiction Collective, but I don't get it that those writers are really influenced by postmodern theorists.

GET RID OF MEANING. YOUR MIND IS A NIGHTMARE THAT HAS BEEN EATING YOU: NOW EAT YOUR MIND.

If you ask me what I want, I'll tell you. I want everything.

We get on the bandwagon in all sorts of ways - you know minor ways and major ways - like what you've just encountered which isn't censorship exactly, it was something sort of uglier in a way.

Well, I think writing is basically about time and rhythm. Like with jazz. You have your basic melody and then you just riff off of it. And the riffs are about timing.

There are times when the law jeopardizes those who obey it.

My nutritionist read my pathology report and said, "There's only one way you can beat your cancer." "What's that?" "You have to find out what caused it.

I wasn't really into body piercings until I found that about half my female students had them.

A novel is a book with a lot of pages.

I'm an avid shoe fan. I got my first pair of Louboutins as a birthday gift from Jami Gertz.

I graduated in 1930 and I went up to the Yale Drama School for two years.

I got turned down for a million jobs until I got my first movie with Francis [Ford Coppola].

From Nature's chain whatever link you strike, Tenth or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.

We can't win friends with a scowling face and an upbraiding voice.

I may look like a nice Jewish girl from New Jersey, but inside I'm a 50-year-old, heavyset black man with a big thumb, like Wes Montgomery.

Everything in Japan is hidden. Real life has an unlisted phone number.

Ready to give up so I seek the old Earth.

We need to be willing to risk embarrassment, ask silly questions, surround ourselves with people who don't know what we're talking about. We need to leave behind the safety of our expertise.

I'm a great believer in getting checked out because if you know you're OK, you actually feel better; your mind plays a big part of it.