Kate Zambreno

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

— Kate Zambreno

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

— Kate Zambreno

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

— Kate Zambreno

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

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

— Kate Zambreno

She smoked because she craved something to do with her hands, that delicate interplay of light and cup and first inhale. Craved…

— 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

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

— Kate Zambreno

With fiction, the works of women are often over-interpreted as autobiography, especially when the main character is a woman, especially if she…

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

— 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

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

— 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

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

— Kate Zambreno

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

— 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

The concept of "girl-on-girl crime" is perplexing to me, and it happens in many ways. There are those, who refuse to identify…

— Kate Zambreno

People are more concerned about the economy then these ridiculous concerns as to gender inequity in society, as manifested in marriages, in…

— 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

“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 wake up and read although Nietzsche says that’s foolish. A sort of narcotic, reading. I read with my hands down the…

— 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

For years I lived rather medicated and muted - I did not possess language to describe my vague feelings of unhappiness, to…

— Kate Zambreno