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I didn't plan on either children or writing. Once I realized that writing satisfied me in some enormous way, I had to make adjustments. The writing wa...more

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I get angry about things, then go on and work.

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When I write, I don't translate for white readers.... Dostoevski wrote for a Russian audience, but we're able to read him. If I'm specific, and I don'...more

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Everything I've ever done, in the writing world, has been to expand articulation, rather than to close it.

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I think women dwell quite a bit on the duress under which they work, on how hard it is just to do it at all. We are traditionally rather proud of ours...more

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I don't believe any real artists have ever been non-political. They may have been insensitive to this particular plight or insensitive to that, but th...more

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I think some aspects of writing can be taught. Obviously, you can't teach vision or talent. But you can help with comfort.

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The Nobel Prize is the best thing that can happen to a writer in terms of how it affects your contracts, the publishers, and the seriousness with whic...more

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Writing is really a way of thinking--not just feeling but thinking about things that are disparate, unresolved, mysterious, problematic or just sweet.

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I never asked Tolstoy to write for me, a little colored girl in Lorain, Ohio. I never asked [James] Joyce not to mention Catholicism or the world of D...more

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Anger ... it's a paralyzing emotion ... you can't get anything done. People sort of think it's an interesting, passionate, and igniting feeling — I do...more

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Make up a story... For our sake and yours forget your name in the street; tell us what the world has been to you in the dark places and in the light. ...more