To counter-balance the natural humility of motherhood, I garden ... In the garden, more than any place, I really feel successful.

I can't actually see myself putting make-up on my face at the age of sixty, but I can see myself going on a camel train to Samarkand.

One knows one's done one's job as a parent properly if one's children reject everything one stands for.

I'm the world's worst bearer of grudges. I'm sure I'll be bearing grudges and paying off old scores on my death-bed.

it is extraordinary how much you are theirs, and how little they are yours. The child grows inside you and there is something mystical and mythical in that, but then you actually see that you are nothing more than the box in which they come. There is this total person, already formed, themselves.

I'm less confident now than I've ever been. In this peculiar craft, confidence is something you spend a lifetime losing. I used to be frightened only one night a week but now I'm frightened of every performance. I mean really frightened.

For marriage the best man is the man within oneself. Most women need to develop their own 'masculine' qualities of independence, pride, courage and open sexuality.