"True morality consists not in following the beaten track, but in finding the true path for ourselves, and fearlessly following it."

“What matters is not publication or success (success is bad for your prose) but the practice of the imaginative act. Our damaged values depend on it.”

Source : "Janet Burroway talks about writing lives". The Chicago Manual of Style Interview, cmosshoptalk.com. April 4, 2014.

“Are there many things in this cool-hearted world so utterly exquisite as the pure love of one woman for another woman?”

“He who does not become familiar with nature through love will never know her.”

“I've never understood why women love cats. Cats are independent, they don't listen, they don't come in when you call, they like to stay out all night, and when they're home they like to be left alone and sleep. In other words, every quality that women hate in a man, they love in a cat.”

“Think of the millions of young men who died fighting for democracy. We spit on their graves when we let democracy slip away into the sewer of illegal money.”

“All my life I have hated and despised alto! ... From a boy it has affected me very strangely. That's why I hate Sunday. People will sing alto on Sunday that would never dream of singing it any other time.”

“I wanted to be the greatest woman guitarist alive. I had fantasies about being a female Jimi Hendrix.”

“The one question you can't ask is, "Is this feature actually good or not?"”

Source : "Lecture 16: How to Run a User Interview". Emmett Shear's "How To Start a Startup" lecture to the class at Stanford University in Stanford, California, genius.com. 2014.