This is why I read novels: so I can escape my own unrelenting monologue.

In a long and healthy life, which is what most of us have, there is plenty of time.

It's hard work being a person, you have to do it every single day.

These are frightening times...when she feels herself annointed by loneliness.

Words are our life. We are human because we use language. So I think we are less human when we use less language.

Happiness is the lucky pane of glass you carry in your head. It takes all your cunning just to hang on to it, and once it's smashed you have to move into a different sort of life.

I don't think I would have been a writer if I hadn't been a mother. I wanted to construct something that contained some of these feelings that I had, some of these discoveries or revelations.