I don't think San Francisco needs defending. I never meet anyone who doesn't love the place, Americans or others.

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

The art of living in a small town is one of the most difficult to acquire.

Time and distance from the first and second world wars doesn't seem to lessen their horrors.

The Freudians describe the conscious as a small lit area, all white, and the unconscious as a great dark marsh full of monsters. In their view, the monsters reach up, grab you by the ankles, and try to drag you down.

I often feel like a dinosaur. I don't get the technology thing at all. I was on the Internet not long ago for Barnes and Noble, and people were ringing up from all over the world - Australia, Canada, France. I experienced it as an informal chat, which was pleasant, but I couldn't quite take it in. It had a strong element of unreality. I can't be bothered to switch to a computer at my age, though I might get along with e-mail, which sounds appealing.

I wanted to write about my mother as she should have been if she had not been messed up by World War I.