After a certain age - and for some of us that can be very young - there are no new people, beasts, dreams, faces, events: it has all happened before.

I do not think that marriage is one of my talents. I've been much happier unmarried than married.

Men are restless, adventurous. Women are conservative - despite what current ideology says.

Because I was permanently confused, dissatisfied, unhappy, tormented by inadequacy, driven by wanting towards every kind of impossible future, the attitude of mind described by 'tolerantly amused eyes' was years away from me. I don't think I really saw people then, except as appendages to my needs. It's only now, looking back, that I understood, but at the time I lived in a brilliantly lit haze, shifting and flickering according to my changing desires. Of course, that is only a description of being young.

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

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.

I wonder why do wars suddenly start and suddenly stop, and why do we Brits and you Americans get involved in some of them and not in others? Is it possible that the arms manufacturers quietly foment wars without us knowing? Dropping bombs is a very profitable business for them. Gore Vidal was talking about this the other day, and he made a lot of sense. Whenever American policy seems inscrutable, he said, remember the military-industrial complex. He's the one who should have been President.