I have no place left to live but in my own heart.

No woman that I know is capable of leaving her child down for thirty seconds. She can't walk away without making sure that everything is absolutely as secure and safe for her child as can be.

I do not think we remember our family in any real sense. We live in them instead

I am a trembling mess from hip to knee. There is a terrible heat, a looseness in my innards that makes me want to dig my fists between my thighs. It is a confusing feeling - somewhere between diarrhoea and sex - this grief that is almost genital.

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

The writing day can be, in some ways, too short, but it's actually a long series of hours, for months at a time, and there is a stillness there.

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.