“A writer with her work needs to be like a dog with a bone all the time. She needs to know where she's hidden it. Where she's stored the good stuff. She needs to keep gnawing at it, even after all the meat seems to be gone. When a student of mine says (okay, whines) that she's impatient, or tired, or the worst: isn't it good enough? this may be harsh, but she loses just a little bit of my respect. Because there is no room for impatience, or exhaustion, or self-satisfaction, or laziness. All of these really mean, simply, that the inner censor has won the day.”

“I need Emilia to challenge me with that quiet voice of hers, to keep me interested with all those little quirks she has. I need her because she gets me.”

“ When a girl is seventeen she needs good parents. When she's twenty-five she needs a pretty face and figure. When she's thirty-five she needs a good personality. When she's fifty-five she needs cash. ”

“She needed to talk, she needed to cry, she needed to vent all her frustrations and disappointments.”

“As it turned out, she was alone after all. She prayed that he'd come back to her, because she missed him and needed her connection, her fix.”

“SHE is neither pink nor pale, And she never will be all mine; She learned her hands in a fairy-tale, And her mouth on a valentine. She has more hair than she needs; In the sun ’tis a woe to me! And her voice is a string of colored beads, Or steps leading into the sea. She loves me all that she can, And her ways to my ways resign; But she was not made for any man, And she never will be all mine.”