For women like me, integrity isn't chastity, it isn't fidelity, it isn't any of the old words. Integrity is the orgasm. That is something I haven't any control over.

Mother's room, and mother's need for privacy become a valuable lesson in respect for other people's rights.

But children can't be a center of life and a reason for being. They can be a thousand things that are delightful, interesting, satisfying, but they can't be a well-spring to live from. Or they shouldn't be.

It is our stories that will recreate us, when we are torn, hurt, even destroyed. It is the storyteller, the dream-maker, the myth-maker, that is our phoenix, that represents us at our best, and at our most creative.

As soon as I got the Nobel Prize my back collapsed and I was in hospital.

Sometimes I think what I write is funny in its quiet way.

Parents should leave books lying around marked "forbidden" if they want their children to read.