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.

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.

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.

Reality might be described as the eternal equipoise of positive and negative.

A philosopher is a deep thinker and a meticulous observer of nature and events that reveal the beauty, truth, and meaning of existence.

It’s not the win that matters so much as recognizing and respecting its value.

Tragedy is not the second face of the life

When you get inside go change into something loose and baggy. And for all that's holy, please wear panties and a bra.

Human beings are weak.

What an orchestra! They just sit there, but their minds are thousands of miles away with their bookies.

All humans are entrepreneurs not because they should start companies but because the will to create is encoded in human DNA.

They are fools who kiss and tell'-- Wisely has the poet sung. Man may hold all sorts of posts If he'll only hold his tongue.

Someone, I tell you, in another time will remember us

Where's the upside in opening your mouth?