Only bad writers think that their work is really good.

I think young children in the Western middle classes are objects of incredible anxiety.

A drinker does not exist. Whatever they say, it is just the drink talking.

The only way to write a book, I’m fond of telling people, is to actually write a book. That’s how you write a book.

I think you know everything at eight. But is is hidden from you, sealed up, in a way you have to cut yourself open to find.

To be able to have the space to sit down and write has always been my central policy.

There's quite a big gap when it comes to that dual identity of mother and child, or even a pregnant woman, or a nursing woman. It kind of begs the question of that very strong Western idea of the individual self.