Every Woman Who Writes Is A Survivor.

Better Mankind Born Without Mouths And Stomachs Than Always To Worry About Money To Buy, To Shop, To Fix, To Cook, To Wash, To Clean.

Better Immersion Than To Live Untouched.

Think About All That We've Lost That Has Been Said Orally Because Nobody Was Taking It Down. I Feel Very Fortunate To Live In A Time Where We Have So Many Different Voices. We Have A Much Richer Literature Than We've Ever Had, And We Can Know America So Much Better.

Literary History And The Present Are Dark With Silences . . . I Have Had Special Need To Learn All I Could Of This Over The Years, Myself So Nearly Remaining Mute And Having To Let Writing Die Over And Over Again In Me. These Are Not Natural Silences--what Keats Called Agonie Ennuyeuse (the Tedious Agony)--that Necessary Time For Renewal, Lying Fallow, Gestation, In The Natural Cycle Of Creation. The Silences I Speak Of Here Are Unnatural: The Unnatural Thwarting Of What Struggles To Come Into Being, But Cannot.

The Fact That Human Beings Do Not Put Up Forever With Misery, Humiliation, Degradation, Actual Physical Deprivation But Act Is A Fact Which Every Human Being Should Know About. We Are A Species That Makes Changes.