What's terrible is to pretend that second-rate is first-rate. To pretend that you don't need love when you do; or you like your work when you know quite well you're capable of better.

Anna was saying to herself: why do I always have this awful need to make other people see things as I do? It's childish, why should they? What it amounts to is that I'm scared of being alone in what I feel.

I never thought of London in terms of possible heroes - of course, there are thousands. It's a very talented city.

I've always disliked words like inspiration. Writing is probably like a scientist thinking about some scientific problem, or an engineer about an engineering problem.

We use our parents like recurring dreams, to be entered into when needed.

I don't know why I still find it so hard to accept that words are faulty and by their very nature innacurate

Our society is dependent on some precarious mechanisms, and they are very dicey. They can easily collapse.