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

Try to be accurate about stuff.

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.

There are about as many ways to be dead as there are to be alive. People linger in different ways, both publicly and privately.

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.

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.

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.