Before things are written down they don't exist in quite the same way. The act of fixing them in words gives them a kind of currency that can be traded.

If there's anything the world disdains more than uppity young women, it's uppity old women. Dying young has always been a woman's best career move.

Women in America read 'lifestyle' pages which are really glorifications of shopping. They teach us we must veil ourselves in make-up to be loved. And we willingly take the veil, thinking ourselves freed by it. Make-up is no more optional for us than the veil is for Arab women: it is our Western version of the chador.

In any triangle, who is the betrayer, who the unseen rival, and who the humiliated lover? Oneself, oneself, and no one but oneself!

I have lived my life according to this principle: If I'm afraid of it, then I must do it.

All natural disasters are comforting because they reaffirm our impotence, in which, otherwise, we might stop believing. At times it is strangely sedative to know the extent of your own powerlessness.

One writes not by will but by surrender.