In more static societies, like Ireland, you can tell where a person is from by their surname, or where their grandparents are from.

If your life just falls apart early on, you can put it together again. Its the people who are always on the brink of crisis who dont hit bottom who are in trouble.

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

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.

People do not change, they are merely revealed.

When you find yourself alone, or in a transition, you dream more. These are also the times when you read books.

I became a full-time writer in 1993 and have been very happy, insofar as anybody is, since.