Because I loved myself, I was loved.
Birth is the start of loneliness and loneliness the start of poetry...
Why does life need evidence of life?
Unhappiness is our element. We come to believe we can’t function without it.
How could one create life with someone who represented death?
Every time I catch myself saying, “Oh no, you shouldn’t try that,” I think, “Yes, I should.”
As long as I’m facing the right direction, it doesn’t matter the size of my steps.
You should write first drafts as if they will never be shown to anyone.
Compose with utter freedom and edit with utter discipline.
I am not quite sure how writing changes things, but I know that it does. It is indirect-like the trails of earthworms aerating the earth. It is not always deliberate-like the tails of glowing dust dragged by comets.
The most important thing for a writer is to be locked in a study...
She was mine and not-mine all at once. She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen and the most terrifying.
We find our calling or it finds us, and it’s a sin against the fates not to use your talent when you have it.
Beware of the man who praises women’s liberation; he is about to quit his job.
Is perception equivalent to existence?
If you apologize for something that isn’t your fault in the first place, you, in effect, confirm their belief that it is your fault.
Keeping a journal implies hope.
Underneath it all, you longed to be annihilated by love...
I convinced myself that sadness and compromise were the ways of the world...
At fifty the madwoman in the attic breaks loose, stomps down the stairs, and sets fire to the house. She won’t be imprisoned anymore.