I can write anywhere. I actually wrote more than I ever did when I had small children. My children were never a hindrance.

There's something to be said about a slightly plump person—you have just enough of too much.

The inevitable is no less a shock just because it is inevitable.

Express everything you like. No word can hurt you. None. No idea can hurt you. Not being able to express an idea or word will hurt you more. Like a bullet.

I was given a dictionary when I was seven, and I read it because I had nothing else to read. I read it the way you read a book.

People don't make changes because things are wonderful.

I would be lost without the feeling of antagonism that people have towards me. I write out of defiance.

People only say I’m angry because I’m black and I’m a woman.

A great piece of literature encompasses all that is and all that will be.

...yet a memory cannot be trusted, for so much of the experience of the past is determined by the experience of the present.

I'm so used to being misunderstood.

Time can be used to convert anything

Maybe if I had to boil it down to one easy sentence, it would be this: I believe in evolution, and I believe in God. I just haven't worked out the details yet.

Instinct is a marvelous thing. It can neither be explained nor ignored.

I was very similar at 19. I wanted something to happen in life, I wanted a bit more. I wanted to find someone who could challenge my ideas. So I definitely tapped into that.

U2's best work has always been when we didn't know what we're doing.

I'm also influenced by all the places I've traveled since then: I've been to Hollywood and great fashion shows and seen the world. I have a different perspective, and I mix that up.

For most of the time carrier aviation is more challenging than flying in a spacecraft

The danger with Margret Thatcher is that when she speaks without thinking she says what she thinks.

Educated men - "civilized," as Fourier used to say with disdain - tremble at the idea that society might some day be without judges, police, or gaolers.

I'm really good at pretending.