We have lost the art of public tenderness, these small gestures of wiping and washing; we have forgotten how abjectly the body welcomes a formal touch.

I write anywhere - when I have an idea it’s hard not to write. I used to be kind of precious about where I wrote. Everything had to be quiet and I couldn’t be disturbed, it really filled my day.

For 10 or 11 years, I had my kids, I wrote four or five books, and I was working all the damn time.

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.

It is very hard to trace the effect of words on a life.

If you try to control it too much, the book is dead. You have to let it fall apart quite early on and let it start doing its own thing. And that takes nerve, not to panic that the book you were going to write is not the book you will have at the end of the day.

Cats, I always think, only jump into your lap to check if you are cold enough, yet, to eat.