Small things may be important to us; to be a sometime anything is sometimes something.

Many of my books are written from a female perspective. I rather enjoy the take that women have on the world, and certainly I enjoy the conversations that women have.

I have three older sisters, so we were a reasonably large family and, in general, a happy one.

When we love others, we naturally want to talk about them, we want to show them off, like emotional trophies. We invest them with a power to do to others what they do to us; a vain hope, as the lovers of others are rarely of much interest to us. But we listen in patience, as friends must, and as Isabel now did, refraining from comment, other than to encourage the release of the story and the attendant confession of human frailty and hope.

I have always taken the view that one should never hold against a man anything he says after twelve o'clock at night or after a glass or two of anything.

It would be wonderful to have a guru; it would be like having a social worker or a personal trainer, not that people who had either of these necessarily appreciated the advice they received.

Botswana is actually very peaceful. It's democratic. It never was in debt. They've been fortunate, they've had diamonds.