I hated the 1960's feminists," she says. "They were dogmatists, you see. In comes ideology, and out goes common sense. This is my experience of life.

I write because I've always written, can't stop. I am a writing animal. The way a silk worm is a silk-producing animal.

Loneliness, she thought, was craving for other people's company. But she did not know that loneliness can be an unnoticed cramping of the spirit for lack of companionship.

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

What of course I would like to be writing is the story of the Red and White Dwarves and their Remembering Mirror, their space rocket (powered by anti-gravity), their attendant entities Hadron, Gluon, Pion, Lepton, and Muon, and the Charmed Quarks and the Coloured Quarks. But we can't all be physicists.

There is nothing more boring for an intelligent woman than to spend endless amounts of time with small children.

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.