I've always been intemperate in my affection for food.

Age focuses you. You are much better concentrated. There's more time when you travel less, don't do book tours, avoid interviews or public appearances. You walk the dogs, fish, hunt, cook and write.

I grew up in an agricultural family, and I never distanced myself from where the food comes from. I think it's quite natural.

The person that was closest to me growing up was my sister, who died at 19. She was an incredibly powerful girl, deeply committed to art and literature.

The reviews are getting better, but they always do, in time, if you're still alive.

I've always been very much attracted to a character that's actually free.

I couldn't read a screenplay without puking.

I don't trust anybody that doesn't do good work. I don't give them any credibility. If they can't write, why should I believe anything they have to say?

I had a concussion I didn't get over for three years. I think that's why I'm goofy.

We are supposed to write poetry to keep the gods alive.

Whatever I learned reading 'Scientific American,' nothing can finally compete with your own observations.

I've never been a true fan of the short story and have only published a single example of my own.

Other than fishing and a little bird-hunting, all I do is write.

Unlike a lot of writers, I don't have any craving to be understood.

If all I did was answer the correspondence I get, that would be my job.

Sometimes literary critics review the book they wanted you to write, not the book you wrote, and that's very irksome.

I couldn't run a tight schedule, and if you're any good at teaching, you get sucked dry because you like your students and you're trying to help them, but you don't have any time left to write yourself.

I got $30 from Nation magazine for a poem and $500 for my first book of poems.

Writing as a woman presents enormous problems but I have attempted it several times and haven't had many complaints.

I enjoy about 1 out of 100 movies, it's about the same proportion to books published that I care to read.

I write novellas because I don't like loose sprawling prose.

I thought, frankly, that it would be more pleasant to write a memoir than it was.

Short things are short all over and long things are long all over.

I can write anywhere.