Kate Zambreno

I have almost never been compared to male writers in any review. All women.

— Kate Zambreno

When I get too worked up about things I have always escaped into catatonia.

— Kate Zambreno

Patriarchy is having the power to name.

— Kate Zambreno

I think genius can have a lot to do with nerve. And permission.

— Kate Zambreno

I am worthy of being read. I mean, one has to be convinced of one's genius.

— Kate Zambreno

On the whole, most biographies about literary women tend to diagnose them.

— Kate Zambreno

“Ruth loved color so much she rarely wore any. Except on her face.”

— Kate Zambreno

I think the online space can be a free space, in that we are not reliant online on the publishing industry or…

— Kate Zambreno

“Sometimes she narrates her actions inside her head in third-person. Does that make her a writer or a woman?”

— Kate Zambreno

If one writes the rules then one can contradict oneself. It's all about rhetoric, about official narratives.

— Kate Zambreno

The biographies of the great men see their excesses as signs of their greatness.

— Kate Zambreno

I don't think men experience the embargo on channeling the autobiography in their literature.

— Kate Zambreno

I always remember my childhood as traumatic, for various reasons; I always felt alienated, outside.

— Kate Zambreno

The nonfiction novel or literary memoir as authored by women is usually given a much harder time in mainstream criticism.

— Kate Zambreno

My writing has always been considered extremely important, even though I make slim-to-no money at it.

— Kate Zambreno

I am home because I am a writer, but sometimes, when I'm not productive (productivity: the expectations of capitalism), I feel like…

— Kate Zambreno

It is only through having a stable loving partnership that I began to feel in control enough to attempt a strict writing…

— Kate Zambreno

How difficult it was for a woman, once she was named by doctors, to become a writer, because many aspects of her…

— Kate Zambreno

I do teach fiction and non-fiction, and usually I'm interested in works that confuse genre, but I'm very new to teaching creative…

— Kate Zambreno

One of my moments of coming to writing, of needing to write to attempt to create myself, to attempt to absolve and…

— Kate Zambreno

“When I was writing Green Girl,I was reading Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, and she’s very dismissive of the young girl.…

— Kate Zambreno

“Sometimes she forces herself under water. She pretends she’s dead. She pretends she has drowned. She is Millais’ Ophelia floating down a…

— Kate Zambreno

I think for a woman, getting older can help, through personal experience, although of course older women are then rendered invisible in…

— Kate Zambreno

“Every year the memory vomits up again, especially after every move. Love of our kind requires so much amnesia. Despite his eternal…

— Kate Zambreno

I am curious to see what books will emerge from all this writing online that's the result of those who grew up…

— Kate Zambreno

I think the key to writing the truth of our existences, so much of this is being incubated online, is examining the…

— Kate Zambreno

The biographies of the great men see their excesses as signs of their greatness. But Jean Rhys, in her biography, is read…

— Kate Zambreno

I try to tell student writers to read as much as possible, not only literature but philosophy, theory, and to form obsessions.…

— Kate Zambreno

I hope what I do when I draw from other people's lives is pay tribute. To try to understand what it means…

— Kate Zambreno

“Lots of talk lately about the GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL that seems to be exclusively masculine. And how many of the characters in…

— Kate Zambreno

“I once told a very serious writer/poet I knew about how obsessed I was with various women’s lives. I think I was…

— Kate Zambreno

“Henry Miller, Genet, Sade, Bataille are really important writers for me and I love them, but I feel often they don’t love…

— Kate Zambreno

“And I *know* I wrote in the above that I hate biographies and reviews that focus on the psychological, surface detail, especially…

— Kate Zambreno

“She [Mary Maclane] is almost always referred to as “confessional.” She has been referred to, several times, as the first blogger. Whereas…

— Kate Zambreno

The memoir by women, read by female readers, is considered a market form, not "great literature."

— Kate Zambreno

The hope in literature is that we are allowed to be imperfect, to write of our imperfection, without being overly critiqued for…

— Kate Zambreno

I think so often, especially if the work is perceived of as being drawn from life, the woman, not her book, is…

— Kate Zambreno

I do think that memoirs by women are reviewed differently and considered somewhat outside of the canon.

— Kate Zambreno

“Ruth's days off always oppress her. The realm of choice paralyzes her. To sleep is to choose neither life nor death.”

— Kate Zambreno

I'm exposing faultlines, dealing especially with rhetoric. Showing that heterosexuality is a disease, or at least its inheritance.

— Kate Zambreno