When you get immersed in whatever you're writing, the world does suddenly get so filtered through what you're writing. And then of course what you're writing then filters the world right back.

Teaching writing puts you on the point of a pin in terms of what you want your own writing to be.

I sometimes think that we expect too much resolution in this world.

Early in the phase of being in a female body, there's all this desire that comes at you, a lot of it hostile, a lot of it dangerous, a lot of it ruinous.

I do some messing around with things, not necessarily about me but about place and people and the things around.

I grew up flying over oceans and moving and sailing.

There's a lot of water in everything I've ever written. There's always oceans and pools.

You can sometimes find something good on the other side of doing something very, very painful.

In order to have a real life of any romance, there has to be a level of fantasy.

I don't think you can have an imagination without having fantasy, and you can't have that rich a life without an imagination.

That's what perfect means. You're finished.

Stubbornness destroys good advice.

All of my creation is an effort to weave a web of connection with the world: I am always weaving it because it was once broken.

In life you are given two ends; one to think with and the other to sit on. Your success in life depends on which end you use most. Heads you win, tails you lose.

I've got to be honest, there's no pleasure when you're working.

My first love was Cinderella, but she ran off with another man.

I am sometimes visited by the heretical thought that there is no such thing as good and bad architecture, any more than there is good and bad nature. It is all in where you stand at the time.

I've been recognized in airports lots of places, but mostly getting recognized is at home.

If you spend too much time being like everybody else, you decrease your chances of coming up with something different.

The strangest thing about life is not its frightful cruelty, but that it can be gentle.

One minute gives invention to destroy; What to rebuild, will a whole age employ.