“There is no more mysterious force than the act of storytelling.”

“Critique is a tool for understanding, but it’s not the end of the process.”

“I didn’t know how to be socially, but I understood sex.”

“I’m most interested in making form work harder and in service of subject matter.”

“Like a worm or octopus, a novel can have more than one heart.”

“I had always had in my head that criticism becomes criticism once it’s published.”

“I’ve never felt quite like a woman because I disobeyed.”

“People betray themselves and others all the time.”

“Goethe remarked, back in the 18th century, that a man of 50 knows no more than a man of 20; they just know different things.”

“I am one of those feminists who concentrates on what we did accomplish rather than what we didn’t.”

“Novelists are always living in an alternative universe. One walks back and forth through a gossamer curtain.”

“I was already the enemy to a lot of the activists, because I wasn’t representing gays in a positive way.”

“Writing has to feel like the appointment you were meant to keep.”