I tell my students you have an absolute right to write about people you know and love. You do. But the kicker is you have a responsibility to make the characters large enough that you will not have sinned against them.

I tell my students you have an absolute right to write about people you know and love. You do. But the kicker is you have a responsibility to make the characters large enough that you will not have sinned against them.

Fiction is a piece of truth that turns lies to meaning.

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.

Class, race, sexuality, gender and all other categories by which we categorize and dismiss each other need to be excavated from the inside.

One of the strengths I derive from my class background is that I am accustomed to contempt.

Change, when it comes, cracks everything open.

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.

Every kid I meet who's a reader has got something like that, their fantasy world. And science fiction is the best, especially for girls because it's the one place where you can do the forbidden.

Gravy is the simplest, tastiest, most memory-laden dish I know how to make: a little flour, salt and pepper, crispy bits of whatever meat anchored the meal, a couple of cups of water or milk and slow stirring to break up lumps.

I have a terrible memory.

I think I would have died if there hadn't been the women's movement. It gave me a vision that I could do something different, and it gave me an understanding that I wasn't a monster, or sport, or a betrayer of my family.

I think it's wonderful that people in pickup trucks are buying two flats of dog food and a copy of 'Bastard.' I want my view of the world to be right up there next to gallon boxes of Tide.

I was born in 1949, and by the time I was 10, I figured out that my hope chest was not aimed in the same direction everybody else's was. And that life was going to be very, very complicated. And that I could either be provocative and declamatory, or shy, retiring and scared.

I'll tell you the secret. When you begin with a character, you want to begin by creating a villain.

I'm still very blunt: If you want to be a writer, get a day job. The fact that I have actually been able to make a living at it is astonishing.

If you write a book that's as powerful and successful as 'Bastard,' there's a strong desire to prove there's something else.

It's fun to tease people about where fiction and life intersect.

It's important to set challenges that you're not sure you're equal to.

My assumption when I began writing was that you were never going to make any money. And you were never going to reach everyone. Therefore you had to do as much as you could in the service of something you genuinely believed in. And if you do that and people get upset, well, there you go.

My sisters, we didn't like each other as kids. We were scared of each other, I think, but we've grown to love each other. It was fun to write about these sisters who were supposed to hate each other but really don't.

My son, Wolf, was born when I was past 40 and the author of a best-selling novel. That means he has grown up a middle-class child - one who sometimes asks me for stories of my childhood but knows nothing of what it means to grow up poor and afraid. I have worked to make sure of that.

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.

Watch out, or I'm liable to put you in a story.

When I was growing up, I always read horror books, while my sister read romance novels. My sister became unmarried and pregnant during high school, and she kept saying, 'This wasn't supposed to happen! Why is this happening to me?' Someone should have given her another book to read.

Writing is the only way I know to demand justice from an uncaring universe.

Things come apart so easily when they have been held together with lies.

We assume that celebrities have it easy and so love to watch them having to endure a bit of hardship.

I love Nautilus and stretching. The results are immediate, and that gives me the motivation to continue.

I am a ordinary teenager. I fall in love like everyone else.

I don't call you handsome, sir, though I love you most dearly: far too dearly to flatter you. Don't flatter me.

The essential elements of giving are power and love - activity and affection - and the consciousness of the race testifies that in the high and appropriate exercise of these is a blessedness greater than any other.

My mother keeps things in perspective for me. She makes me realize that the acting I do and love is no more important than what one of my brothers does-he works in a shoe repair shop. If my career ever tapers off, I'll go to college.

Actors love mental disorders, dialects, and corsets. Give them one of the three and they're happy.

My goal is, of course, for this show to do well, and I would love it if people liked it.

I love living on that stage. Without that, I'd die.

I love my DSL, but I love my WiFi more. And I probably get on the Internet 40 percent to 50 percent more because of the combination of those technologies.

But I love New York. I used to set my alarm clock when I was there, and get up at 4am and get a coffee, just because I could.

I love children and I love men, but I can't commit to either for the rest of my life.

Sitting at home the way I do, I'd just love the hear from people. It'd be a great help in passing the time.

The wise are wise only because they love. The fool are fools only because they think they can understand love.

We can recognize the dawn and the decline of love by the uneasiness we feel when alone together.

Love is a mutual self-giving which ends in self-recovery.

People react to fear, not love; they don't teach that in Sunday School, but it's true.

I sort of understood that when I first started: that you shouldn't repeat a success. Very often you're going to, and maybe the first time you do, it works. And you love it. But then you're trapped.

There is love there. And then there's times when I can't even stomach Simon. You don't have to sit next to him. That's all I have to say.

When I see children, I see the face of God. That's why I love them so much. That's what I see.

One can love a child, perhaps, more deeply than one can love another adult, but it is rash to assume that the child feels any love in return.