I always remember my childhood as traumatic, for various reasons; I always felt alienated, outside..

When I get too worked up about things I have always escaped into catatonia..

For years and years I carried these notebooks around with me - I had hundreds of pages of notes, these fragments that consisted of biographical anecd….

My writing has always been considered extremely important, even though I make slim-to-no money at it..

I think the mad wives and mistresses are my hysterics - even the fictionalized ones. I want to trace how they were silenced, I want to find for them ….

The biographies of the great men see their excesses as signs of their greatness. But Jean Rhys, in her biography, is read as borderline; Anaïs Nin is….

If one writes the rules then one can contradict oneself. It's all about rhetoric, about official narratives..

All of my wildness is in the writing. I have discovered I have to be orderly and boring in my personal life to be wild in my work..

I think the female first-person is still dismissed, demonized, especially if the book does not end on an empowering note, especially if the main char….

I am worthy of being read. I mean, one has to be convinced of one's genius..

I don't think men experience the embargo on channeling the autobiography in their literature..

The nonfiction novel or literary memoir as authored by women is usually given a much harder time in mainstream criticism..

I'm just too lazy. I wish I could be someone that has wild affairs - all of my favorite nonfiction novels are about these wild affairs and postmarita….

She smoked because she craved something to do with her hands, that delicate interplay of light and cup and first inhale. Craved the repetition of it.….

I'm exposing faultlines, dealing especially with rhetoric. Showing that heterosexuality is a disease, or at least its inheritance..

The memoir by women, read by female readers, is considered a market form, not "great literature.".

People are more concerned about the economy then these ridiculous concerns as to gender inequity in society, as manifested in marriages, in the menta….

I think for a woman, getting older can help, through personal experience, although of course older women are then rendered invisible in our society, ….

I try to tell student writers to read as much as possible, not only literature but philosophy, theory, and to form obsessions. There's a big taboo in….

How difficult it was for a woman, once she was named by doctors, to become a writer, because many aspects of her behavior that are accepted in the ge….

I think genius can have a lot to do with nerve. And permission..