quotes from classic

Feminism is teaching. I've gotten a lot of pleasure pushing younger writers that I've met and worked with.

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I think feminism means what it has always meant - women want to use all their gifts, all their talents and be judged impartially for them. I don't think feminism has ever meant anything else.

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Is a currency worth anything if no one wants it? We used to buy shoes in Italy. Remember?

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Famous people complain about fame, but they never want to give it back, myself included.

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I think professionalism is important, and professionalism means you get paid.

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Every country gets the circus it deserves. Spain gets bullfights. Italy the Church. America Hollywood.

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I never became a writer for the money. I am a poet first. Even getting published is a miracle for poets.

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At certain historic moments, grandparents took on childrearing responsibilities. In many cultures, they still do. Chinese grandparents who are able to retire at 55 are seen all over Beijing bouncing grandbabies. In the United States, we can't afford to retire at 55.

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I write slowly by hand. Publishing is effectively bankrupt for you unless you are Danielle Steele. It takes a year to write book and advances are going down or disappearing.

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Sadly, because of the enormous gap between rich and poor, some mothers can afford helpers, but many can't. Those who can would be kinder to refrain from criticizing other women.

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Poetry is what we turn to in the most emotional moments of our life - when a beloved friend dies, when a baby is born or when we fall in love.

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Ken, my husband, just smelled like he belonged to me. I'm not talking about hygiene. I'm talking about when you hug him, he either feels like a member of your tribe or not. It's their scent.

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People always think that history proceeds in a straight line. It doesn't. Social attitudes don't change in a straight line. There's always a backlash against progressive ideas.

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I have a very sensitive nose. I identify with dogs. I understand the world through my nose.

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I thought to spend my declining years writing poetry and teaching - but that won't pay the Bergdorf's bill. I think I'll move to somewhere life is cheaper.

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I guess the thing that I'm most proud of is that I kept on writing poetry. I understand that poetry is sort of the source of everything I do. It's the source of my creativity.

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I do a lot of teaching... and so I think I know how hard it is for young writers, how they have to work two jobs to survive.

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Friends love misery, in fact. Sometimes, especially if we are too lucky or too successful or too pretty, our misery is the only thing that endears us to our friends.

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When I was a ten-year old bookworm and used to kiss the dust jacket pictures of authors as if they were icons, it used to amaze me that these remote people could provoke me to love.

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Perhaps all artists were, in a sense, housewives: tenders of the earth household.

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