I know by now that I don’t care to be an accepted habitué of any one world. That’s part of being a writer too. Wanting out. From the role-playing. Ex… - Hortense Calisher

American critics and scholars don’t emendate writers who are women—until we’re well dead. Generally speaking, the pejorative for a woman who writes complexly is “obscure.” A man who is “obscure” however, may well be “profound” and merit interpretation.

out in what I knew damn well was the real world—of literature and everything else—my agony was how to begin. (How do you?) You begin. (What had held you back?) Fear.

I think all artists, even the great ones, are combinations of arrogance and innocence. As life goes on we may lose one or the other in some proportion. To function best one must have both. Once I began to write, though, I learned that the ambition can only phrase itself in the book. There’s such an enormous difference in the writer being, and the writer doing.