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.

There is no real escape from autobiography into biography. The self has to be faced, or we die.

Of course you have to believe in destiny; that everything is sheer chance is an intolerable notion.

You will find that women who are pregnant often don't want to be and women who aren't desperately envy those who are. Labour wards are always full of very punitive people.

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

Letters crossing in the post, unfamiliar tunes heard three times in one day, the way that blows of fate descend upon the same bowed shoulders, and the beams of good fortune glow perpetually upon the blessed. Fairy tales, as I said, are lived out daily. There is far more going on in the world than we ever imagine.

I didn't even know I was a feminist until I read it on the back of one of my own books.