A woman fallen has no future; a man risen has no past.

She is a loner, too bright for the slutty girls and too savage for the bright girls, haunting the edges and corners of the school like a sullen disillusioned ghost

What’s the likelihood? That the one girl who makes my heart race is the one girl who wants me in return? That the accident of my attraction coincides with the accident of hers?

I have observed that male writers tend to get asked what they think and women what they feel," she says. "In my experience, and that of a lot of other women writers, all of the questions coming at them from interviewers tend to be about how lucky they are to be where they are – about luck and identity and how the idea struck them. The interviews much more seldom engage with the woman as a serious thinker, a philosopher, as a person with preoccupations that are going to sustain them for their lifetime.

It is a feature of human nature to give what we most wish to receive.

Love cannot be reduced to a catalogue of reasons why, and a catalogue of reasons cannot be put together into love.

I vote far-left. I am frequently angered by corporate greed and think education ought to be free and teachers paid well.