But some natives--most natives in the world--cannot go anywhere. They are too poor. They are too poor to go anywhere. They are too poor to escape the….

I was then at the height of my two-facedness: that is, outside I seemed one way, inside I was another; outside false, inside true..

One's obligation every day, is to choose to follow the nobler one..

I like to be depressing. I feel it's my duty to make everyone a little less happy. You know that line in the Declaration of Independence, "the pursui….

The thing we call romance is a diversion from something truer, which is life..

I would pretend when I was a child that I was Charlotte Brontë, because I'd read Jane Eyre when I was ten and, although I didn't understand it, I lov….

I don't feel I'm angry. I feel as though I'm describing something true. If I had stabbed my husband, I could understand being called "angry." If I ha….

I'm writing out of desperation. I felt compelled to write to make sense of it to myself - so I don't end up saying peculiar things like 'I'm black an….

People don't make changes because things are wonderful..

For me, writing isn't a way of being public or private; it's just a way of being. The process is always full of pain, but I like that. It's a reality….

I can't get upset about 'offensive to women' or 'offensive to blacks' or 'offensive to Native Americans' or 'offensive to Jews' ... Offend! I can't g….

You know how they say a man's house is his castle? I think for a woman, it's her body. I feel so strongly about a woman's right to choose. This is my….

This naming of things is so crucial to possession - a spiritual padlock with the key thrown irretrievably away - that it is a murder, an erasing, and….

I think in many ways the problem that my writing would have with an American reviewer is that Americans find difficulty very hard to take. They are i….

One doesn't have to pursue unhappiness. It comes to you. You come into the world screaming. You cry when you're born because your lungs expand. You b….

Every time I end a book, I look down at myself..

When I'm writing, I think about the garden, and when I'm in the garden I think about writing. I do a lot of writing by putting something in the groun….

I've never gotten used to winter and never will..

I've come to see that I'm saying something that people generally do not want to hear..

The photograph of my brother that is in this album shows a young man, beautiful and perfect in the way of young people, for young people are always p….

Gardeners (or just plain simple writers who write about the garden) always have something they like intensely and in particular, right at the moment ….