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.

In the writing process, the more a story cooks, the better.

My mother was a woman who was very frustrated. She had a great deal of ability, and all this energy went into me and my brother.

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.

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

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

There is a great line of women stretching out behind you into the past, and you have to seek them out and find them in yourself and be conscious of them.