The essence of romantic love is that wonderful beginning, after which sadness and impossibility may become the rule.

You have no idea how promising the world begins to look once you have decided to have it all for yourself. And how much healthier your decisions are once they become entirely selfish.

What is interesting about self-analysis is that it leads nowhere - it is an art form in itself.

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

One loses the capacity to grieve as a child grieves, or to rage as a child rages: hotly, despairingly, with tears of passion. One grows up, one becomes civilized, one learns one's manners, and consequently can no longer manage these two functions - sorrow and anger - adequately.

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.