Once you get older, people stop listening to what you say. It's very agreeable once you get used to it.

Narrative is one of the best intoxicants or tranquilisers.

You did not so much mind being -conventionally- betrayed, if you were not kept in the dark, which was humiliating, or defined only as a wife and dependent person, which was annihilating.

Well, I would hardly say I do write as yet. But I write because I like words. I suppose if I liked stone I might carve. I like words. I like reading. I notice particular words. That sets me off.

Only write to me, write to me, I love to see the hop and skip and sudden starts of your ink.

I'm not very interested in myself. I do have a deep moral belief that you should always look out at other things and not be self-centred.

You know, it's a truism that writers for children must still be children themselves, deep down, must still feel childish feelings, and a child's surprise at the world.