What I increasingly felt, in marriage and in motherhood, was that to live as a woman and to live as a feminist were two different and possibly irreconcilable things.

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.

God gave you brain so that you can give him rest.

I hate that you went through hell for years and that you suffered. But without your past, you and I wouldn’t have a future.

Everyone gets forgotten because of Alzheimer's, ignored because of ignorance about oneself and replaced because of trying to stay in the same place.

I love adventure sports. And, I love cooking.

Look at the view and you'll never be disappointed.

Dignity and love were never yet boon companions.

This is the worst drug epidemic I've seen in my lifetime.

I like records. My favorite is Simon and Garfunkel.

What I take from writers I like is their economy - the ability to use language to very effective ends.

I never learned to play properly either, I was a little bit too lazy for that, but as long I could express myself in a way that had sound, I was happy.