 A voice is a human gift; it should be cherished and used, to utter fully human speech as possible. Powerlessness and silence go together. |
| If the national mental illness of the United States is megalomania, that of Canada is paranoid schizophrenia. |
| I hope that people will finally come to realize that there is only one 'race' - the human race - and that we are all members of it. |
| If I were going to convert to any religion I would probably choose Catholicism because it at least has female saints and the Virgin Mary. |
| Never pray for justice, because you might get some. |
| A divorce is like an amputation: you survive it, but there's less of you. |
| We thought we were running away from the grownups, and now we are the grownups. |
| The beginning of Canadian cultural nationalism was not 'Am I really that oppressed?' but 'Am I really that boring?' |
| The answers you get from literature depend on the questions you pose. |
| You need a certain amount of nerve to be a writer. |
| Because I am a mother, I am capable of being shocked: as I never was when I was not one. |
| Their mothers had finally caught up to them and been proven right. There were consequences after all but they were the consequences to things you didn't even know you'd done. |
| Myths can't be translated as they did in their ancient soil. We can only find our own meaning in our own time. |
| A word after a word after a word is power. |
| The Eskimos had fifty-two names for snow because it was important to them: there ought to be as many for love. |
| For years I wanted to be older, and now I am. |
| A ratio of failures is built into the process of writing. The wastebasket has evolved for a reason. |
| This above all, to refuse to be a victim. |
| We still think of a powerful man as a born leader and a powerful woman as an anomaly. |
| Another belief of mine; that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise. |
