“Men like women who write, even though they don't say so. A writer is a foreign country.”

“Don't say you're a writer if you're not writing. Even if you're writing, don't call yourself a writer. Say instead, 'I write.' It's the verb that's important, not the noun.”

“a writer is a foreign country”

“They say great themes make great novels.. but what these young writers don't understand is that there is no greater theme than men and women.”

“When people say to me, 'Why are you so good at writing at women?' I say, 'Why isn't everybody?' Obviously there are differences between men and women - that's what makes it all fun. But we're all people. There's a lot of good writers who are very humanist, but still manage to kind of skip fifty-five per cent of the race. And I just don't get that. Not to be able to write an entire gender? To me, the question isn't how do you do it? It's how can you possibly avoid doing it?”

“A writer writes to a great extent to be read (let's admire those who say they don't, but not believe them).”