Emotions unreel in her like spools of cotton. - Louise Erdrich

(Q: Who are the writers who influenced your work or served as models?) A: Michael Dorris, of course: believer, critic, beloved, and the person I most admire. Other than Michael, it is hard to pick out lasting influences. I'm a browser, prey to temporary enthusiasms. In my reading life, I usually have a number of books "going" at once. Last year I read nature essays. This year, women's politics and Henry James. My favorites over the years include Flannery O'Connor, William Faulkner, Angela Carter, Gabrel Garcia Marquez, Marguerite Duras, Robert Stone, Jane Smiley, Robb Forman Dew, Jean Rhys, Adrienne Rich, Toni Morrison, Rene Char, Larry Woiwode, Christina Stead, Katherine Anne Porter, Willa Cather, Jim Harrison, the poets Louise Gluck, Mary Oliver, Sharon Olds and Donald Hall. I read Madame Bovary and Jane Austen and George Eliot over and over. (1993 interview)

When a baby falls asleep in your arms you are absolved. The purest creature alive has chosen you. There’s nothing else.

When she shut her eyes, her mind grew alert. Her senses opened. All around her, she felt how quickly things formed and were consumed. How there was so much blind feeling. It was going on beyond the wall of her sight, out of her control. Unheard, unnoticed, the blood dropped into her hands and feet, so that she was anchored. Which she was glad for, because the light was so feeble and the blackness so strong that she felt as though she could drift away like a boat of skin, never to return, leaving only her crumpled dress.