Why are there no great women artists?' sounds as ignorant of human geography as the query 'Why are there no Eskimo tennis teams?

All our parents have levels of deviousness. We're driven to write about this discrepancy between the bright shining selves they invented and the monsters lurking underneath.

As to why people like Joseph Lelyveld are writing memoirs, I think they're just catching on the coattails of the trend.

We write out of revenge against reality, to dream and enter the lives of others.

I didn't find this memoir of these two eccentric people so different from doing my memoirs of De Sade or Simone Weil. My parents in their own way are as odd as Sade.

Lovers, children, heroes, none of them do we fantasize as extravagantly as we fantasize our parents.

I shall never cease to marvel at the way we beg for love and tyranny.