A feminist man is a bit like a vegetarian: it's the humanitarian principle he's defending, I suppose.

Hope is like one of those orchids that grows around toxic waste: lovely in itself - and an assertion, if you like, of indefatigable good - but a sure sign that something nasty lies underneath.

As writers go, I have a skin of average thickness. I am pleased by a good review, disappointed by a bad. None of it penetrates far enough to influence the thing I write next.

That's writing for you: when you make space for passion, it doesn't turn up.

How can there be so many mothers in the world but so little sense of what it might be to become one?

The creativity of childhood was often surrendered amid feelings of unworthiness. So the idea that ­others are demanding to be given it back - to be "taught" - is disturbing.

Childhood, after all, is not an ending, but rather a state full of potent curiosity.

Even if they knew the truth of their own feelings, most mothers would be socially and emotionally incapable of revealing it.

Honest criticism, I suppose, has its place. But honest writing is infinitely more valuable.

Hope is one of those no-win-no-fee things, and although it needs some encouragement to survive, its existence doesn't necessarily prove anything.

People are least aware of others when demonstrating their own power over them.

You know your Bible too well and life too little.

Life was such a precious thing, easily broken.

Do you want to be an artist and a writer, or a wife and a lover? With kids, your focus changes. I don't want to go to PTA meetings.

And besides, it drives the dragon crazy when you sing about his downfall even though you are bleeding

Politeness is the flower of humanity.

Don't only practice your art, but force your way into its secrets; art deserves that, for it and knowledge can raise man to the Divine.

A man can be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love her.

Here's a habit I never thought I'd develop: I gravitate to anything online that's marked 'most popular' or 'most e-mailed.' And I hate myself a little bit every time I do.

I tend not to analyse my work, though I'm frequently intrigued when other people take time to do so.

Americans are not terribly intelligent people. They need to read important things several times.