Science fiction isn't just thinking about the world out there. It's also thinking about how that world might be - a particularly important exercise for those who are oppressed, because if they're going to change the world we live in, they - and all of us - have to be able to think about a world that works differently. Samuel R.Delany
The reason for privacy is not so that people will not know you go to the bathroom. It's to allow certain things to go on that you don't want other people to know about, when all is said and done. But the things I don't want other people to know about are not my sex life. Samuel R.Delany
How we treat our invalids - our mad, our physically or mentally compromised family members - does tell you something about who we are politically, historically, culturally. Samuel R.Delany
'Dhalgren' is the kind of book in which you can look for pretty much anything you want. I tried to put as much into it as I could at the time. Samuel R.Delany
Linguistics is very much a science. It's a human science, one of the human sciences. And it's one of the more interesting human sciences. Samuel R.Delany
We don't have a unitary society anymore, you know; it's very fragmented. I look up and down my block in Silverlake and there is a different universe in every house. Janet Fitch
I think that Oprah's on a mission to improve the lives the average American in various ways. And one of them is to bring literature to people who would normally not be quite as demanding in their reading tastes, to show them writing that can be more than just entertainment. Janet Fitch
My house is modern, but I like my writing room to be old fashioned. I write on a little wooden secretary desk. Janet Fitch
I tried writing fiction as a little kid, but had a teacher humiliate me, so didn't write again until I was a senior in college. Janet Fitch
My father was an engineer - he wasn't literary, not a writer or a journalist, but he was one of the world's great readers. Every two weeks, he'd take me to our local branch library and pull books off the shelf for me, stacking them up in my arms - 'Have you read this? And this? And this?' Janet Fitch
The writer is both a sadist and a masochist. We create people we love, and then we torture them. The more we love them, and the more cleverly we torture them along the lines of their greatest vulnerability and fear, the better the story. Janet Fitch
I use my fiction to explore my own unconscious issues. I usually don't even know what's going on with me until I'm writing. That doesn't mean my books are autobiographical. Janet Fitch
To make films, you have to have boundless energy; you have to work and play with others really, really well, and I'm really a more contemplative kind of person. I like to sit at home and think, a lot. Janet Fitch
A cliche is like a coin that has been handled too much. Once language has been overly handled, it no longer leaves a clear imprint. Janet Fitch
As a person with terrible handwriting, I love the computer. I've waited all my life for the computer. Janet Fitch
Your protagonist is your reader's portal into the story. The more observant he or she can be, the more vivid will be the world you're creating. They don't have to be super-educated, they just have to be mentally active. Keep them looking, thinking, wondering, remembering. Janet Fitch
Many women get involved with a man that you pretty much know isn't suitable and you're kind of breaking your rules, but he's attractive in some unknown way. And then he doesn't even realize what a sacrifice you're making by being with him and he dumps you! Janet Fitch