Whereas the slums in Hamburg are the slums of its sailors, Berlin is a big slum.

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.

Of course love is never earned. It is a grace we give one another. Anything we need to earn is only approval.

Greatness is what happens when you aren't afraid to relentlessly push yourself to tear down all your walls of limitations.

She's lost in thought. I'm lost in her.

Good artists copy

I like to hide behind the characters I play.

Every time I must find something to do that will look like something a little beyond my capabilities.

You can never entirely stop being what you once were. That's why it's important to be the right person today, and not put it off till tomorrow.

While working among the little plants of the far places of the world we forget the narrowness of our own orbit.

Do we have anything in music that really wipes everything out? That just cleans everything away?

Art is a passion or it is nothing.