I am not cynical. I am just old. I know what is going to happen next.

I know that I'm a real writer because sometimes I write a story just because I want to; not because someone's told me to.

I like the dry-cleaners. I like the sense of refreshment and renewal. I like the way dirty old torn clothes are dumped, to be returned clean and wholesome in their slippery transparent cases. Better than confesssion any day. Here there is a true sense of rebirth, redemption, salvation.

I am not cynical. I am just old. I know what is going to happen next.

Confidence is something one acquires. It can come early or late but it is impossible to write without it. Mine came late.

Writing is more than just the making of a series of comprehensible statements: it is the gathering in of connotations; the harvesting of them, like blackberries in a good season, ripe and heavy, snatched from among the thorns of logic.

As it has turned out, the whole relationship between men, women and children has tilted, to the disadvantage of women.