Love is everything it's cracked up to be

A book burrows into your life in a very profound way because the experience of reading is not passive.

I have not ceased being fearful, but I have ceased to let fear control me.

It is a sad paradox that when male authors impersonate women ... they are said to be dealing with 'cosmic, major concerns' - but when we impersonate ourselves we are said to be writing 'women's fiction' or 'women's poetry.

certain very old people reach an age where every funeral becomes some sort of insane confirmation of strength, rather than of vulnerability, as it is when we are in our thirties or forties and our friends die.

Isn't that the problem? That women have been swindled for centuries into substituting adornment for love, fashion (as it were) for passion?

Allow me to put the record straight. I am forty-six and have been for some years past.