I need noise and interruptions and irritation: irritation and discomfort are a great starter. The loneliness of doing it any other way would kill me.

A man of such obvious and exemplary charm must be a liar.

Death is only a small interruption.

The lessons taught in great books are misleading. The commerce in life is rarely so simple and never so just.

Writing novels preserves you in a state of innocence - a lot passes you by - simply because your attention is otherwise diverted.

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

Good women always think it is their fault when someone else is being offensive. Bad women never take the blame for anything.