"My hand does the work and I don't have to think; in fact, were I to think, it would stop the flow. It's like a dam in the brain that bursts."

"I am obsessive, also I am industrious. Besides, the time when you are most alive and most aware is in childhood and one is trying to recapture that heightened awareness."

"Writing is like carrying a fetus."

"I'm an Irish Catholic and I have a long iceberg of guilt."

"The vote means nothing to women. We should be armed."

"Writers really live in the mind and in hotels of the soul."

"In every question and every remark tossed back and forth between lovers who have not played out the last fugue, there is one question and it is this: 'Is there someone new?'"

"Countries are either mothers or fathers, and engender the emotional bristle secretly reserved for either sire."

"I have some women friends but I prefer men. Don't trust women. There is a built-in competition between women."