Conventions, like clichés, have a way of surviving their own usefulness..

Now that our sexual experience is increasingly available to us as a subject for contemplation, we have to extend our language to express our new cons….

My private measure of success is daily. If this were to be the last day of my life would I be content with it? To live in a harmonious balance of com….

I had always said to myself that forty was the cut off point of my apprenticeship which may for some people sound like a very long one, but the novel….

I've never been resigned to ready-made ideas as I was to ready-made clothes, perhaps because although I couldn't sew, I could think..

I didn't want to be a boy, ever, but I was outraged that his height and intelligence were graces for him and gaucheries for me..

I was very frightened when I turned forty. I suddenly thought I ought to wake up and be speaking with the voice of God..

The message of women's liberation is that women can love each other and ourselves against our degrading education..

Love is the terrible secret people are suspected of unless they're married, then one always suspects they don't..

The terrifying message of gay liberation is that men are capable of loving their brothers. It should be sweet news to every womanin the world, for, i….

I remember how surprised I was when my first novel was about to be published and I was informed that I could be sued for anything any one of my chara….

This desert town was man's own miracle of pure purposelessness..

If the tenth of the population that is gay became visible tomorrow, the panic of the majority of people would inspire repressive legislation of a sor….

People genuinely happy in their choices seem less often tempted to force them on other people than those who feel martyred and broken by their lives..

The real power of books is their deep companionability. We learn from them as we learn from the deep companionability of love to know our own hearts ….

casino owners spoke more loudly than any of the other kings of industry to defend their contribution to society. They could speak more loudly because….

Charity is a cop-out so traditionally female in its apparent self-effacement that there seems resonant comfort in it. We're no longer supposed to ser….

Morality for the novelist is expressed not so much in the choice of subject matter as in the plot of the narrative, which is perhaps why in our moral….

Morality is a test of our conformity rather than our integrity..

Morality, like language, is an invented structure for conserving and communicating order. And morality is learned, like language, by mimicking and re….

To live in a harmonious balance of commitments and pleasures is what I strive for..