“But as the years went on, I realised that what I really want to be, all told, is a human. Just a productive, honest, courteously treated human.”

“But, of course, you might be asking yourself, 'Am I a feminist? I might not be. I don't know! I still don't know what it is! I'm too knackered and confused to work it out. That curtain pole really ...”

“It's difficult to see the glass ceiling because it's made of glass. Virtually invisible. What we need is for more birds to fly above it and shit all over it, so we can see it properly.”

“And yet, despite the multiplicity of times we've done it, it is still a funny, exultant, true thing - where for a short time you turn into something else and fly; where you stop fretting and wantin...”

“The problem with battling yourself is that even if you win, you lose.”

“I am eating this noise like mouthfuls of freezing, glittering fog. I am filling with it. I am using it as energy. Because what you are, as a teenager, is a small, silver, empty rocket. And you use ...”

“We need a temporary cessation in people having any opinions about any women, ever. I propose a, say, five-year moratorium on having opinions about women, in order to let one generation of girls get...”

“Public opinion is the worst of all opinions.”

“Sometimes the unyielding are just fighting to stay alive. No one wants to find out that their life was a lie. And when you change someones mind, you are only rebirthing them into your reality. You ...”

“Always try to be perceptive and observant in living, sensatory for details and diversity. Always try to see beyond the surface, and look in another perspective. Always try not to judge. Always seek...”

“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.”