I hate Iran. I hate the Iranian government. It's a cruel and evil government.

Perhaps it is not such a bad marriage after all? There are innumerable marriages where two people, both twisted and wrong in their depths, are well matched, making each other miserable in the way they need, in the way the pattern of their life demands.

The smell of manure, of sun on foliage, of evaporating water, rose to my head; two steps farther, and I could look down into the vegetable garden enclosed within its tall pale of reeds - rich chocolate earth studded emerald green, frothed with the white of cauliflowers, jeweled with the purple globes of eggplant and the scarlet wealth of tomatoes.

You know, when I was a girl, the idea that the British Empire could ever end was absolutely inconceivable. And it just disappeared, like all the other empires.

I'm very unhappy when I'm not writing.

I think kids ought to travel. I think it's very good to carry kids around. It's good for them. Of course it's tough on the parents.

You have to be grown up, really grown up, not merely in years, to understand your parents.