Life... is not simply a series of exciting new ventures. The future is not always a whole new ball game. There tends to be unfinished business. One trails all sorts of things around with one, things that simply won't be got rid of.

I was brought up among the sort of self-important women who had a husband as one has an alibi.

Romanticism is not just a mode; it literally eats into every life. Women will never get rid of just waiting for the right man.

Dr Weiss, at forty, knew that her life had been ruined by literature.

In real life, it is the hare who wins. Every time. Look around you. And in any case it is my contention that Aesop was writing for the tortoise market. Hares have no time to read. They are too busy winning the game.

A man can go from being a lover to being a stranger in three moves flat but a woman under the guise of friendship will engage in acts of duplicity which come to light very much later. There are different species of self-justification.

You never know what you will learn till you start writing. Then you discover truths you never knew existed.