We have to give our poor, innocent, and undeserving-of-our-badness characters trouble in order to make them characters in a story.

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.

She looked like autumn, when leaves turned and fruit ripened.

Life does not happen to you, it happens for you. Savor every flavor.

I think steak is the ultimate comfort food, and if you're going out for one, that isn't the time to scrimp on calories or quality.

THE KNOWN CHILD I wondered to what extent people remained the same as they'd been when very young; if one peeled back the layers of living one would come to the known child.

We older women who know we aren't heroines can offer our younger sisters, at the very least, an honest report of what we have learned and how we have grown.

We are told that talent creates its own opportunities. But it sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents.

Telling people not to have children is unthinkable and inhumane.

A long time ago, I learned not to go up to the boss and ask what's happening to my character. I haven't done that for 20 years, since I was on 'Days of Our Lives.

I've always been a daydreamer.

Respect the delicate ecology of your delusions.