“Creativity could be described as letting go of certainties.”

“In my memoir, I admit that I've been as fearful of success as of failure. In fact, when 'Passages' was published, I so dreaded bad reviews that I ran away to Italy with a girlfriend and our childre...”

“Being a pathfinder is to be willing to risk failure and still go on.”

“The delights of self-discovery are always available.”

“When men reach their sixties and retire, they go to pieces. Women go right on cooking.”

“We really only have two choices. Play it safe, or take a chance. For me, pulling back because of fear has always made me feel worse.”

“Middle age is when your age starts to show around your middle.”

“The Middle East is hopeful. There's hope there.”

“At dawn, they call in a napalm airplane, but it drop the shit damn near right on top of us. Our own fellers be all signed and burnt up - come running out into the open, eyes big as biscuits, everyb...”

“We must be our own before we can be another's.”

“A family has its own rituals and its own superstitions.”

“It is harder for queens, who have no luxury of meekness. History does not know how to reconcile our ambition or our power when we are strong enough to survive it. The priests have no tolerance for ...”

“... to be forceful was not the same as being powerful and to be gentle was not the same as being fragile...”