“Ive grown quite weary of the spunky heroines, brave rape victims, soul-searching fashionistas that stock so many books. I particularly mourn the lack of female villains good, potent female villain...”

“what are you thinking, Amy? How are you feeling? Who are you? What have we ddone to each other? What will we do?”

“Things might not be great, but things would be okay.”

“I know a little bit about trying to do the right thing and fucking up completely." I added."You talking about mom?" Ben said"I was talking about me.""You could have been talking about all of us. Be...”

“There's a difference between really loving someone and loving the idea of her.”

“Love makes you want to be a better man—right, right. But maybe love, real love, also gives you permission to just be the man you are.”

“No black woman writer in this culture can write "too much". Indeed, no woman writer can write "too much"...No woman has ever written enough.”

“When you reduce a woman to writing, she makes you think of a thousand other women”

“I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.”

“There are many things that make a man irritable when he arrives home from work in the evening and a sensible wife will usually notice the storm-signals and will leave him alone until he simmers down.”

“Oblivion, she thought. That was the world she lived in. It was what they should name some countries, towns, and places.”

“A lot of men wouldn't like being called a romantic. It's not macho enough.'Quite often men are fools.”

“Violence is a disease, a disease that corrupts all who use it regardless of the cause.”

“A weapon does not decide whether or not to kill. A weapon is a manifestation of a decision that has already been made.”

“Extreme violence has a way of preventing us from seeing the interests it serves.”