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

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.

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.

If you have confident, courage and strength, you can succeed in life.

Text, images, and video are the paint swatches of 21st-century artists — with a single catch: this form of art has to communicate, engage, and sell.

Having my son made me grow up. I'm keeping my dangers in the movies.

When we interact with others the ego manifests. We have to show that we're superior or that we know more, are more spiritual, evolved - or that we're the worst, everyone is better.

It would be nice if education was free to everyone who wanted it, but that's not the world we live in.

The day you stop loving your people, they're not your people anymore.

I love to eat - Kit Kats or cookies-and-cream ice cream. I need sugar like five times a day.

A woman one loves rarely suffices for all our needs, so we deceive her with another whom we do not love.

It has been said that beauty is a promise of happiness. Conversely, the possibility of pleasure can be a beginning of beauty.

You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income.