Two or three things I know for sure, and one of them is the way you can both hate and love something you are not sure you understand.
I claimed myself and remade my life.
Beauty, my first girlfriend said to me, is that inner quality often associated with great amounts of leisure time.
Fiction never exceeds the reach of the writer's courage.
Babies change things, open doors you thought were shut, close others. Make you into something you never been.
If people really believed that rape made lesbians, and brutal fathers made dykes, wouldn’t they be more eager to do something about it?
Two or three things I know for sure, and one is that I’d rather go naked than wear the coat the world has made for me.
stories are the one sure way I know to touch the heart and change the world.
“I fell into shame like a suicide throws herself into a river.”
“I am the only one who can tell the story of my life and say what it means.”
“We wanted a feminist revolution. I wanted it like a lover. I wanted it like justice.”
One of the strengths I derive from my class background is that I am accustomed to contempt.
Piece by piece, my mother is being stolen from me.
Teenagers are free verse walking around on two legs.
Behind the story I tell is the one I don't...Behind the story you hear is the one I wish I could make you hear.
The hardest thing to teach young writers is that it's wonderful to tell your truth. And that's what you should do. But it damn well better be beautiful.
When I was growing up, I always read horror books, while my sister read romance novels.
I think I would have died if there hadn't been the women's movement.
“Fiction is the great liar that tells the truth about how the world really lives.”
“fiction is the great lie that tells the truth”
“I was born trash in a land where the people all believe themselves natural aristocrats.”
Writing is the only way I know to demand justice from an uncaring universe.
Fiction is a piece of truth that turns lies to meaning.
I did not begin with craft, I began with strong feelings and worked toward craft.
Things come apart so easily when they have been held together with lies.
Two or three things I know for sure, and one is that I'd rather go naked than wear the coat the world has made for me.