Widows tend either to fade away when husbands die, committing emotional suttee, or else find that a new life burgeons. Here in Christchurch, a lot of burgeoning goes on.

If you do nothing unexpected, nothing unexpected happens.

Nothing happens, and nothing happens, and then everything happens.

There's no such thing as old age, there is only sorrow.

Only one thing registers on the subconscious mind: repetitive application - practice. What you practice is what you manifest.

I didn't even know I was a feminist until I read it on the back of one of my own books.

The desire for self-expression afflicts people when they feel there is something of themselves which is not getting through to the outside world.

Fiction stretches our sensibilities and our understanding, as mere information never can.

Marriage is a very difficult relationship for nearly everyone and I'm sure you shouldn't do it if you want a quiet little easy life.

guilt to motherhood is like grapes to wine

She could see that to lose a sibling was hard: it could only seem unnatural:out of time, out of order, a vicious re-run of your own departure into nothingness.

In the course of history, men come to see that iron necessity is neither iron nor necessary.

Putting your well-being first - like putting your oxygen mask on before you help the person next to you - that really benefits all your relationships.

Hunger (for things) is the supreme disease.

[T]hat I could find company and consolation and hope in an object pulled almost at random from a bookshelf--felt akin to an instance of religious grace.

It is not size or age that separates children from adults. It is responsibility.

My theory has always been that everyone in show business is there because they were deprived of some attention as a child.

I'm not the last of the old bosses. I'm the first of the new leaders.

While I am describing to you how Nature works, you won't understand why Nature works that way. But you see, nobody understands that.

Fake it until you make it. Pretend to be somebody until that somebody turns into you.

The old folk, time's doting chronicles.