Women's books are kind of discriminated against. If a man writes a book about his family stories, people think of it as literature. If it's a woman, she's 'spilling her guts,' and it's not art.

You see a lot of smart guys with dumb women, but you hardly ever see a smart woman with a dumb guy.

Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't.

And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more.

I have accepted fear as a part of life - specifically the fear of change... I have gone ahead despite the pounding in the heart that says: turn back.

The stones themselves are thick with history, and those cats that dash through the alleyways must surely be the ghosts of the famous dead in feline disguise.

Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow the talent to the dark place where it leads.

Ambivalence is a wonderful tune to dance to. It has a rhythm all its own.

Take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame.

How wonderful to have someone to blame! How wonderful to live with one's nemesis! You may be miserable, but you feel forever in the right.

My generation was not only maligned in book reviews and attacked in graduate school but we lived to see our adored and adorable daughters wonder why feminism had become a dirty word.

Your best authorial self is always one about to ruin the story.

We mothers of grown-up daughters tend to view them with a mixture of love, exasperation, irritation and awe.

Drank a lot of take home pay.

It is not the deed we do Though the deed be never so fair, But the love that the dear Lord looketh for, Hidden with lovely care In the heart of the deed so fair.

I'm pretty boring with pizza toppings. I only ever eat margherita. If it's ever anything else then I'll just go 'mmm', pretend to eat it, then throw it in the bin.

If it wasn't for golf, I'd probably be a caddie today.

I have always wanted to do an acoustic record from the very beginning of my career. I was a coffeeshop artist where everything I did was acoustic.

I could remember the house on Lexington Street, where the mortgage hung over our heads almost as tangibly as the roof, and we still managed to enjoy life.

What is translated from English and into English - and in what quantities - is a question of power.

When I wrote about the Spanish Civil War many years later, I used documents that I picked up when I was a child, as a lot hadn't been published (a lot more resources are available now).