I don't necessarily read everything. I read what I need to read to inspire the book I'm trying to finish.

Women are individuals in parenting, and why not?

Poetry is what we turn to in the most emotional moments of our life - when a beloved friend dies, when a baby is born or when we fall in love.

We all have fantasies about sex that are more perfect than anything in reality.

We find our calling or it finds us, and it's a sin against the fates not to use your talent when you have it.

I am never so calm as after I have written. And the next morning I will feel the familiar anxiety and I will have to begin the process all over again.

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.